Russia, in return for this promise, was to be allowed to conquer Finland, a province of vast importance to her.
It is also stated by some authorities that Alexander agreed that Napoleon should do as he liked with Spain and Portugal; while Napoleon consented that Alexander should be allowed to strip Turkey of Moldavia and Wallachia, provided Turkey refused his mediation.
CHAPTER XXX
At this period (1807) Napoleon was a strikingly handsome man. The “wan and livid complexion, bowed shoulders, and weak, sickly appearance” of the Vendémiaire period were things of long ago. The skin disease of the Italian campaign had been cured. Not yet fat and paunchy as he became toward the end, his form had rounded to a comely fulness, which did not impair his activity. The face was classic in profile, and in complexion a clear, healthy white. His chin was prominent, the jaw powerful, the head massive, being twenty-two inches round, according to Constant. The chestnut-colored hair was now thin, inclining to baldness on the crown. Worn long in his youth, he cut it short in the Egyptian campaign, and ever afterward continued to wear it so. His ears, hands, feet, were small and finely shaped. The nose was long, straight, well proportioned. His teeth were white and sound; the lips beautifully moulded; the expression about the mouth, when he smiled, being peculiarly sweet and winning. His eyes were gray-blue, and formed the striking feature of his face. All accounts agree that his glance was uncomfortably steady and penetrating; or, at other times, intolerably fierce and intimidating; or, again, irresistibly soft, tender, magnetic. One is struck with the fact that so many who knew him, and loved him or hated him, feared him or defied him, should emphasize the impression made upon them by his eyes. Before that steady gaze, which seized and held attention, Lavalette said that he felt himself turning pale; Decrés lost all desire to be familiar; Vandamme became a coward; Augereau and Masséna admitted they were afraid; Madame de Staël grew embarrassed; and Barras faltered into silence at his own table. Not many years ago there lived in Michigan a battered veteran of the Italian wars, one who had been with Napoleon the day he reconnoitred Fort Bard, which had checked the army; and this old soldier’s recollection of Napoleon had dwindled down to the wonderful eyes which had fixed him as though they would pierce the very innermost fibre. During the year 1900 there died in London an aged man, who as a boy had seen Napoleon at St. Helena; and his recollection of the fallen Emperor hung upon the same feature,—the eyes.
Generally, the expression of Napoleon’s face was that of a student,—mild, pensive, meditative, intellectual. In moments of good humor, his smile, glance, voice, were caressing, genial, even fascinating. In anger, his look became terrible; a rotary movement took place between the eyes, and the nostrils distended. All agree that in conversation there was such a play of feature, such quick changes of expression, such mirroring of the mind upon the face, that no description or portrait could convey an idea of it. Only those who had talked with him could realize it. But it is also agreed that when he wished to banish all expression, he could do that also, and his face then became a mask.
His voice was sonorous and strong. In anger it became harsh and cruelly cutting. In his best mood it was as soft and wooing as a woman’s. His general appearance, then, at this time, was that of a well-built man, below the medium height, but powerfully moulded, the bust, neck, and head being massive, and the legs somewhat short for the trunk. Unfriendly critics called him stunted, his stature being about five feet, three inches.
He was inclined to be round-shouldered, and, when walking meditatively, he slightly stooped. In talking he gesticulated freely, sometimes violently; when in repose the hands were folded behind him, or across the breast, or one would rest within the waistcoat and the other behind him.
It is doubtful whether any true portrait of Napoleon exists. He has been idealized and caricatured until the real Napoleon may have been lost. If the death mask claimed to have been taken by Antommarchi is genuine, one must surrender the belief that Napoleon’s head was massive, his brow imperial, his profile perfect; for this mask exhibits a forehead which recedes, and which narrows above the temples. It shows the high cheek-bones of the American Indian, and the skull itself is commonplace. But this is not the Napoleon pictured in the portraits and Memoirs of his contemporaries. According to friend and foe, his head was massive, in fact too large to be in symmetry with his body. Madame Junot speaks of that “brow fit to bear the crowns of the world.” Bourrienne, Méneval, and numbers of others speak of the magnificent forehead and classic face. And yet there are two or three fugitive portraits of Napoleon which are so different from the orthodox copies, and so much like the Antommarchi’s death-mask, that one knows not what to believe.
Napoleon was very temperate in eating and drinking. He preferred the simplest dishes, drank but little wine, and that weakened with water. Coffee he drank, but not to excess. He ate fast, and used his fingers oftener than his fork. He was very sensitive to cold, and could not bear the least light in his room at night. He slept a good deal, from six to eight hours per day; and usually took a nap during the afternoon or evening. His standing order to his private secretary was a model of wisdom, “Never wake me to hear good news, that will wait; but in case of bad news wake me at once, for there is no time to be lost.” Another rule of his was to sleep over a matter of doubt. “Night is a good counsellor.”