While still a young man, Napoleon wrote several works in French, such as the Souper de Beaucaire, the Mémoire sur la Culture du Mûrier, &c. Some of the manuscripts of these writings must be still extant; and a comparison of the spelling of his unpretending youth, with that of his aspiring
manhood, would show at once whether the "orthographe extraordinairement estropiée" of his later productions was the result of habit or design.
The orthography of the French language is peculiarly intricate; and it is no uncommon thing to meet with educated men in that country who are unable to spell with accuracy. That Napoleon may have been in a similar predicament, would not be surprising; but that it should be said of the most extraordinary man of the age, that his spelling is extraordinairement estropiée, seems inexplicable upon any fair supposition, except that he accounted the rules of spelling unworthy the attention of any but copyists and office drudges; or (which is more probable) that he wished this extraordinary spelling to be received as an indication of the great rapidity with which he could commit his thoughts to paper.
Henry H. Breen.
MEMOIRS OF GRAMMONT.
(Vol. viii., pp. 461. 549.; Vol. ix., p. 3.)
There appearing to be a strong feeling that a correct edition of these Memoirs should be published, with the present inaccurate notes thoroughly revised, I send you a few notes from a collection I have made on the subject.
The proper orthography of the name is "Gramont," and the family probably originally came from Spain. Matta's friend, the Marquis de Sevantes, asserts the fact; and it is corroborated by the fact, that on the occasion of the Marshal de Grammont's demanding the hand of the Infanta Maria Theresa for Louis XIV., the people cried, "Viva el Marescal de Agramont, que es de nuestro sangue!" And the King of Spain said to the Marshal after the presentation of his sons, the Counts de Guiche and De Louvigny, "Teneis Muy Buenos y lindos hijos y bien se hecha de ver que los Agramonteses salen de la sangue de Espana."
The Grammont family had been so enriched and ennobled by its repeated marriages with the heiresses of great families, that, like many noble houses of our own times, members of it hardly knew their own correct surname: thus, in the famous declaration of the parliament of Paris against the Peers in 1717, on the subject of the Caps, it was said: