jealousy, their meanness, and their ingratitude.

There is something piquant in thinking of Napoleon as a domestic sort
of person. Indeed, it is rather difficult to do so. When we speak his
name we think of the stern warrior hurling his armies up bloody slopes
and on to bloody victory. He is the man whose steely eyes made his
haughtiest marshals tremble, or else the wise, far-seeing statesman and
lawgiver; but decidedly he is not a household model. We read of his
sharp speech to women, of his outrageous manners at the dinner-table,
and of the thousand and one details which Mme. de Remusat has
chronicled--and perhaps in part invented, for there has always existed
the suspicion that her animus was that of a woman who had herself
sought the imperial favor and had failed to win it.

But, in fact, all these stories relate to the Napoleon of courts and
palaces, and not to the Napoleon of home. In his private life this
great man was not merely affectionate and indulgent, but he even showed
a certain weakness where his relatives were concerned, so that he let
them prey upon him almost without end.

He had a great deal of the Italian largeness and lavishness of
character with his family. When a petty officer he nearly starved
himself in order to give his younger brother, Louis, a military
education. He was devotedly fond of children, and they were fond of
him, as many anecdotes attest. His passionate love for Josephine before
he learned of her infidelity is almost painful to read of; and even
afterward, when he had been disillusioned, and when she was paying
Fouche a thousand francs a day to spy upon Napoleon's every action, he
still treated her with friendliness and allowed her extravagance to
embarrass him.

He made his eldest brother, Joseph, King of Spain, and Spain proved
almost as deadly to him as did Russia. He made his youngest brother,
Jerome, King of Westphalia, and Jerome turned the palace into a pigsty
and brought discredit on the very name of Bonaparte. His brother Louis,
for whom he had starved himself, he placed upon the throne of Holland,
and Louis promptly devoted himself to his own interests, conniving at
many things which were inimical to France. He was planning high
advancement for his brother Lucien, and Lucien suddenly married a
disreputable actress and fled with her to England, where he was
received with pleasure by the most persistent of all Napoleon's enemies.

So much for his brothers--incompetent,