HIS INDUSTRY AND CURIOSITY.
Great as was his appetite for knowledge, his memory in retaining, and his quickness in applying it; his labor both in acquiring and using it was equal to them. In application to business he could wear out the men most inured to study. In the deliberations on the Code Civil, many of which lasted ten, twelve, or fifteen hours without intermission, he was always the last whose attention flagged; and he was so little disposed to spare himself trouble, that even in the Moscow campaign he sent regularly to every branch of administration in Paris directions in detail, which in every government but his would, both from usage and convenience, have been left to the discretion of the superintending minister, or to the common routine of business. This and other instances of his diligence are more wonderful than praiseworthy. He had established an office with twelve clerks, and Mounier at their head, whose sole duty it was to extract, translate, abridge, and arrange under heads the contents of our English newspapers. He charged Mounier to omit no abuse of him, however coarse or virulent; no charge, however injurious or malignant. As, however, he did not specify the empress, Mounier, who reluctantly complied with his orders, ventured to suppress, or, at least, to soften any phrases about her; but Napoleon questioned others on the contents of the English papers; detected Mounier and his committee in their mutilations of the articles, and forbade them to withhold any intelligence or any censure they met with in the publications which they were appointed to examine. Yet with all this industry, and with the multiplicity of topics which engaged his attention, he found time for private and various reading. His librarian was employed for some time every morning in replacing maps and books which his unwearied and insatiable curiosity had consulted before breakfast. He read all letters whatever addressed to himself, whether in his private or public capacity; and it must, I believe, be acknowledged, that he often took the same liberty with those directed to other people. He had indulged in that unjustifiable practice[28] before his elevation, and such was his impatience to open both parcels and letters, that, however employed, he could seldom defer the gratification of his curiosity an instant after either came under his notice or his reach. Josephine, and others, well acquainted with his habits, very pardonably took some advantage of this propensity. Matters which she feared to mention to him were written and directed to her, and the letters unopened left in his way. He often complied with wishes which he thought he had detected by an artifice, more readily than had they been presented in the form of claim, petition, or request. He liked to know every thing; but he liked all he did to have the appearance of springing entirely from himself, feeling, like many others in power, an unwillingness to encourage even those they love in an opinion that they have an influence over them, or that there is any certain channel to their favor. His childish eagerness about cases led, in one instance, to a gracious act of playful munificence. He received notice of the arrival of a present from Constantinople, in society with the empress and other ladies. He ordered the parcel[29] to be brought up, and instantly tore it open with his own hand. It contained a large aigrette of diamonds which he broke into various pieces, and he then threw the largest into her imperial majesty's lap, and some into that of every lady in the circle.