nvolved with the
general maze of history, sufficiently immersed in the storm-cloud of
that tempestuous epoch, to be lost from view. This volume shows the
man emerging from boyhood into the full career of a military
conqueror. It shows him in his magical transformation from the
character of an adventurer into the character of a leader of armies
and a dictator of events. It also shows Napoleon with the still fluid
heart of boyhood passing through the lava floods of his first loves,
in particular his love for Josephine, into the age of cynicism and
calculation.

This first volume brings sufficiently to memory the progress of the
youthful Napoleon. Here we see him at his mother's knee; then in the
time of his school days; then in Paris and Valence; then as a neophyte
author, quite absurd in his dreams; then on garrison duty, and then
swept away with the tides of the oncoming revolution. In the smoke of
the South his slender figure is seen here and there until he emerges
at Toulon. In his character of Jacobin he becomes a general in the
army at a time of life when most men are happy to be lieutenants. Then
for the first time he touches the revolutionary society of Paris. He
meets Josephine; Barras delivers her to the coming man. They are
wedded, and from that date the stage widens, the wars in Italy break
out, and the young general begins to whirl his sword at Mantua,
Arcole, and Rivoli--from which he was wont to date his military birth,
saying on that occasion, "Make my life begin at Rivoli;" and finally
at Montebello and Venice, where, in the late spring of 1797, he is
joined by Josephine. There from the French capital they seemed to
stand afar as the cynosure of all revolutionary eyes, expecting a
greater light.

In the second volume Professor Sloane begins with the rescue of the
Directory. Hard after we have the great episode of the Treaty of Campo
Formio, and then the expedition to Egypt. The story of that expedition
is known through all the world; so also the return, and the overthrow
of the Directory.

From that day Bonaparte became the embodiment of the revolution. He
became a statesman and a strategist. He found himself in the
geographical and historical storm-centre of Europe. Then came the
epoch of great wars. Marengo marks the close of the old century, and
the treaty of Luneville the beginning of the new. Napoleon undertakes
the pacification of Europe, and reorganizes France. He steps
cautiously towards the