ainst all generous impulses, and possesses no true grandeur.
I noticed that he always failed to understand and to admire a noble
action;" and again she goes on to say that "In war he foresaw the
means of calling away our attention from the reflections which, sooner
or later, his government could not fail to suggest to us, and he
reserved it in order to dazzle, or at least to enforce silence on us.
Bonaparte felt that he would be infallibly lost the day when his
enforced inactivity enabled us to think both of him and of ourselves."
"What a relief whenever the Emperor went away! His absence always
seemed to bring solace. People breathed more freely."

Now this would have been all very well. It was the stereotyped
phraseology of Napoleon's avowed enemies. He knew it, and viewed it
with contempt and derision, and until Madame de Remusat and her
snuffling, cringing husband became swollen with over-indulgence and
smitten with wounded pride, they regarded language such as now appears
in her memoirs as mere froth. She practically says that she held the
same views in 1818 as she did from 1802 to 1808, but when she wrote
this she no doubt relied on her correspondence being kept snugly
private or destroyed; but it has been published, and here are some
amazing extracts from it:--

"I often think, my dear, of that Empire, the territory of which
extends to Antwerp! Consider what a man he must be who can rule it
single-handed, and what few instances history offers like him!"[24]
"Whilst he creates, so to speak, new nations in his progress, people
must be struck, from one end of Europe to the other, by the remarkably
prosperous state of France. Her Navy, formed in two years, after a
ruinous revolution, and assuming at last a menacing attitude after so
long, excited the scoffs of a shortsighted enemy."

"When again I reflect on the peace we enjoy, our wise and _moderate
liberty_, which is quite sufficient for me, the glory my country is
covered with, the pomp and even the magnificence surrounding us, and
in which I delight, because it is proof that success has crowned our
efforts; when, in short, I consider that all this prosperity is the
work of _one man_, I am filled with admiration and gratitude."[25]

"What I write here, my dear, is, of course, strictly between
ourselves, for many people would be anxious to ascribe to these
feelings some other cause than that which really inspires them;
besides, it seems to me that we are less e