have the honour to be, &c., COUNT MONTHOLON."

An act of this order implied a good deal of self-possession. But, even
to the last day he continued to occupy his mind with subjects
sufficiently trying at any period. On one of those nights he made
Montholon bring a table to his bed-side, and dictated for two hours; the
subjects being, the decoration of Versailles, and the organisation of
the National Guard. On the 30th of April he was given over by the
physicians. On the 3rd of May his fever continued, and his mind was
evidently beginning to be confused. On the 5th of May he passed a very
bad night and became delirious. "Twice," said Montholon, "I thought I
distinguished the unconnected words, _France--Armee--Tete
d'Armee--France_."

His final hour now visibly approached. From six in the morning, until
half-past five in the evening of that day, he remained motionless, lying
on his back, with his right hand out of the bed, and his eyes fixed,
seemingly absorbed in deep meditation, and without any appearance of
suffering; his lips were slightly contracted; his whole face expressed
pleasant and gentle impressions.

But he seems to have been awake to external objects to the last. For
whenever Antommarchi attempted to moisten his lips, he repulsed him with
his hand, and fixed his eyes on Montholon, as the only person whom he
would permit to attend him. At sunset he died.

The immediate cause of his death was subsequently ascertained by the
surgeons to have been an extensive ulceration of the stomach.

On the 9th of May the body was buried with military honours. On the
30th, Montholon, with the household, quitted St Helena.

Thus obscurely, painfully, and almost ignominiously, closed the career
of the most brilliant, ambitious, and powerful monarch of his time. No
man had ever attained a higher rank, and sunk from it to a lower. No man
had ever been so favoured by fortune. No man had ever possessed so large
an influence over the mind of Europe, and been finally an object of
hostility so universal. He was the only man in history, against whom a
Continent in arms pronounced sentence of overthrow: the only soldier
whose personal fall was the declared object of a general war:--and the
only monarch whose capture ensured the fall of his dynasty, extinguished
an empire, and finished the loftiest dream of human ambition in a
dungeon.

Napoleon, since his fall, has been denied genius. But if genius implies
the power of accompli