devotion, he broke forth into an
eloquent and impassioned account of the great general of his age!

That name once heard, I could not bear to think or speak of any other.
How I followed him,--from the siege of Toulon, as he knelt down beside
the gun which he pointed with his own hand, to the glorious battlefields
of Italy,--and heard, from one who listened to his shout of
"Suivez-moi" on the bridge of Lodi, the glorious heroism of that day! I
tracked him across the pathless deserts of the East,--beneath the shadow
of the Pyramids, whose fame seems somehow to have revived in the history
of that great man. And then I listened to the stories--and how numerous
were they!--of his personal daring; the devotion and love men bore him;
the magic influence of his presence; the command of his look. The very
short and broken sentences he addressed to his generals were treasured
up in my mind, and repeated over and over to myself. Charles possessed
a miniature of the First Consul, which he assured me was strikingly
like him; and for hours long I could sit and gaze upon that cold,
unimpassioned brow, where greatness seemed to sit enthroned. How I
longed to look upon that broad and massive forehead,--the deep-set,
searching eye,--the mouth, where sweetness and severity seemed
tempered,--and that finely rounded chin, that gave his head so much the
character of antique beauty! His image filled every avenue of my brain;
his eye seemed on me in my waking moments, and I thought I heard his
voice in my dream. Never did lover dwell more rapturously on the memory
of his mistress than did my boyish thoughts on Bonaparte. What would I
not have done to serve him? What would I not have dared to win one word,
one look of his, in praise? All other names faded away before his;--the
halo around him paled every other star; the victories! had thought
of before with admiration I now only regarded as trifling successes,
compared with the overwhelming torrent of his conquests. Charles saw my
enthusiasm, and ministered to it with eager delight. Every trait in his
beloved leader that could stimulate admiration or excite affection, he
dwelt on with all the fondness of a Frenchman for his idol; till at last
the world seemed to my eyes but the theatre of his greatness, and
men the mere instruments of that commanding intellect that ruled the
destinies and disposed of the fortunes of nations.

In this way, days and weeks, and even months rolled on, for Charles's