The new idea presented to my mind led me to take up a course of serious reading, which comprised all the "Lives" of Napoleon on which I could lay my hands, all the St. Helena Journals, and the commentaries which have been written since their publication. As my knowledge of the great drama increased, I found my pro-Napoleonic ideas increasing in fervour. Like the Psalmist when musing on the wickedness of man, "my heart was hot within me, and at the last I spake with my tongue."
I may here state in passing that there is no public figure who lived before or since his time who is surrounded with anything approaching the colossal amount of literature which is centred on this man whose dazzling achievements amazed the world. Paradoxical though it may appear now, in the years to come, when the impartial student has familiarised himself with the most adverse criticisms, he will see in this literature much of the hand of enmity, cowardice, and delusion and, as conviction forces itself upon him, there evolve therefrom the revelation of a senseless travesty of justice.
I offer no apology for the opinions contained in this book, which have been arrived at as the result of many years of study and exhaustive reading. I give the volume to the public as it is, in the hope that it may attract in other ways to a fair examination of Napoleon's complex and fascinating character.
WALTER RUNCIMAN.
December 3, 1910.
CONTENTS
| [PREFACE] | |
| [CHAPTER I] | THE ABODE OF DARKNESS |
| [CHAPTER II] | THE MAN OF THE REVOLUTION—CRITICISM, CONTEMPORARY AND OTHERWISE |
| [CHAPTER III] | THREE GENERATIONS: MADAME LA MÈRE, MARIE LOUISE, AND THE KING OF ROME |
| [CHAPTER IV] | THE OLIGARCHY, THEIR AGENTS AND APOLOGISTS |
| [CHAPTER V] | MESDAMES DE STAËL AND DE REMUSAT |
| [CHAPTER VI] | JOSEPHINE |
| [CHAPTER VII] | RELIGIOUS NOTIONS OF NAPOLEON |
| [BIBLIOGRAPHY] | |
| [ LIST OF EVENTS AND DATES] | HAVING REFERENCE TO NAPOLEON BONAPARTE |
| [INDEX] |