portance; for, as he
said to Admiral Malcolm at St. Helena: "In France trifles are great
things: reason is nothing."[179] Besides, genius so commanding as his
little needed the external trappings wherewith ordinary mortals hide
their nullity. If his attire was simple, it but set off the better the
play of his mobile features, and the rich, unfailing flow of his
conversation. Perhaps no clearer and more pleasing account of his
appearance and his conduct at a reception has ever been given to the
world than this sketch of the great man in one of his gentler moods by
John Leslie Foster, who visited Paris shortly after the Peace of
Amiens:

"He is about five feet seven inches high, delicately and gracefully
made; his hair a dark brown crop, thin and lank; his complexion
smooth, pale, and sallow; his eyes gray, but very animated; his
eye-brows light brown, thin and projecting. All his features,
particularly his mouth and nose, fine, sharp, defined, and
expressive beyond description; expressive of what? Not of
anything_perce_ as the prints expressed him, still less of anything
_mechant_; nor has he anything of that eye whose bend doth awe the
world. The true expression of his countenance is a pleasing
melancholy, which, whenever he speaks, relaxes into the most
agreeable and gracious smile you can conceive. To this you must add
the appearance of deep and intense thought, but above all the
predominating expression a look of calm and tranquil resolution and
intrepidity which nothing human could discompose. His address is
the finest I have ever seen, and said by those who have travelled
to exceed not only every Prince and Potentate now in being, but
even all those whose memory has come down to us. He has more
unaffected dignity than I could conceive in man. His address is the
gentlest and most prepossessing you can conceive, which is seconded
by the greatest fund of levee conversation that I suppose any
person ever possessed. He speaks deliberately, but very fluently,
with particular emphasis, and in a rather low tone of voice. While
he speaks, his features are still more expressive than his
words."[180]

In contrast with this intellectual power and becoming simplicity of
attire, how stupid and tawdry were the bevies of soulless women and
the dumb groups of half-tamed soldiers! How vapid also the rules of
eti