Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I

Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been maintained.
Accessibility: Expansions of abbreviations have been provided using the <abbr> tag, and changes in language are marked. Speech rendering will be improved if voices for the following languages are available: Fr (a few words with De, Pt, Es, Ru, It).
Ingrata patria, ne ossa quidem habes. Scipio.
Ex-Secretary of the Emperor Napoleon and of his Cabinets, Master of Requests to the Council of State, Baron, Officer of the Legion of Honour, and Knight of the Order of Reunion.
VOL. I.
LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET. 1820.

The revolution of the 20th of March will form unquestionably the most remarkable episode in the life of Napoleon, so fertile as it is in supernatural events. It has not been my intention, to write the history of it: this noble task is above my powers: I have only attempted, to place Napoleon on the stage of action, and oppose his words, his deeds, and the truth, to the erroneous assertions of certain historians, the falsehoods of the spirit of party, and the insults of those timeserving writers, who are accustomed to insult in misfortune those, to whom they have subsequently paid court.
Hitherto people have not been able to agree on the motives and circumstances, that determined the Emperor, to quit the island of Elba. Some supposed, that he had acted of his own accord: others, that he had conspired with his partisans the downfal of the Bourbons. Both these suppositions are equally false. The world will learn with surprise, perhaps with admiration, that this astonishing revolution was the work of two individuals and a few words.
The narrative of Colonel Z , so valuable from the facts it reveals, appears to me to merit the reader's attention in other respects. On studying it carefully, we find in it the exhibition of those defects, those qualities, those passions, which, confounded together, form the character, so full of contrasts, of the incomprehensible Napoleon. We perceive him alternatively mistrustful and communicative, ardent and reserved, enterprising and irresolute, vindictive and generous, favourable to liberty and despotic. But we see predominant above all, that activity, that strength, that ardour of mind, those brilliant inspirations, and those sudden resolves, that belong only to extraordinary men, to men of genius.