We may add to this brief account of Napoleon's domestic habits, that he was very attentive to the duties of the toilet. He usually appeared in the morning in a white night-gown, with loose trousers and stockings joined in one, a chequered red Madras handkerchief round his head, and his shirt-collar open. When dressed, he wore a green uniform, very plainly made, and without ornament, similar to that which, by its simplicity, used to mark the sovereign among the splendid dresses of the Tuileries, white waistcoat, and white or nankeen breeches, with silk stockings, and shoes with gold buckles, a black stock, a triangular cocked hat, of the kind to be seen in all the caricatures, with a very small tri-coloured cockade. He usually wore, when in full dress, the riband and grand cross of the Legion of Honour.[248]
HIS MEMOIRS.
Such were the personal habits of Napoleon, on which there is little for the imagination to dwell, after it has once received the general idea. The circumstance of the large portion of his time employed in dictation, alone interests our curiosity, and makes us anxious to know with what he could have found means to occupy so many pages, and so many hours. The fragments upon military subjects, dictated from time to time to Generals Gourgaud and Montholon, are not voluminous enough to account for the leisure expended in this manner; and even when we add to them the number of pamphlets and works issuing from St. Helena, we shall still find room to suppose either that manuscripts remain which have not yet seen the light, or that Napoleon was a slow composer, and fastidious in the choice of his language. The last conjecture seems most probable, as the French are particularly scrupulous in the punctilios of composition, and Napoleon, emperor as he had been, must have known that he would receive no mercy from the critics upon that particular.
The avowed works themselves, fragments as they are, are extremely interesting in a military point of view; and those in which the campaigns of Italy are described, contain many most invaluable lessons on the art of war. Their political value is by no means so considerable. Gourgaud seems to have formed a true estimation of them, when, in answer to Baron Sturmer's inquiries, whether Napoleon was writing his history, he expressed himself thus:—"He writes disjointed fragments, which he will never finish. When asked why he will not put history in possession of the exact fact, he answers, it is better to leave something to be guessed at than to tell too much. It would also seem, that not considering his extraordinary destinies as entirely accomplished, he is unwilling to detail plans which have not been executed, and which he may one day resume with more success." To these reasons for leaving blanks and imperfections in his proposed history, should be added the danger which a faithful and unreserved narrative must have entailed upon many of the actors in the scenes from which he was lifting the veil. It is no doubt true, that Napoleon seems systematically to have painted his enemies, more especially such as had been once his adherents, in the most odious colours, and particularly in such as seemed likely to render them most obnoxious to the ruling powers; but the same principle induced him to spare his friends, and to afford no handle against them for their past efforts in his favour, and no motive for taking from them the power of rendering him farther service, if they should be in a capacity to do so.
These considerations operated as a check upon the pen of the historian; and it may be truly said, that no man who has written so much of his own life, and that consisting of such singular and important events, has told so little of himself which was not known before from other sources. But the present is not the less valuable; for there is sometimes as much information derived from the silence as from the assertions of him who aspires to be his own biographer; and an apology for, or vindication of, the course of a remarkable life, however partially written, perhaps conveys the most information to the reader, next to that candid confession of faults and errors, which is so very seldom to be obtained in autobiography.
Napoleon's Memoirs, together with the labour apparently bestowed upon his controversial pamphlets written against Sir Hudson Lowe, seem to have furnished the most important part of his occupation whilst at St. Helena, and probably also of his amusement. It was not to be expected that in sickness and calamity he could apply himself to study, even if his youth had furnished him with more stores to work upon. It must be remembered that his whole education had been received at the military school of Brienne, where indeed he displayed a strong taste for the sciences. But the studies of mathematics and algebra were so early connected and carried on with a view to the military purposes in which he employed them, that it may be questioned whether he retained any relish for prosecuting his scientific pursuits in the character of an inquirer into abstract truths. The practical results had been so long his motive, so long his object, that he ceased to enjoy the use of the theoretical means, when there was no siege to be formed, no complicated manœuvres to be arranged, no great military purpose to be gained by the display of his skill—but when all was to begin and end with the discussion of a problem.
That Napoleon had a natural turn for belles lettres is unquestionable; but his leisure never permitted him to cultivate it, or to refine his taste or judgment on such subjects. The recommendation which, in 1784, described him as fit to be sent to the Military School at Paris, observes, that he is tolerably acquainted with history and geography, but rather deficient in the ornamented branches, and in the Latin language.[249] At seventeen years of age, he joined the regiment of La Fère, and thus ended all the opportunities afforded him of regular education. He read, however, very extensively; but, like all young persons, with little discrimination, and more to amuse himself than for the purpose of instruction. Before he had arrived at that more advanced period when youths of such talent as his, and especially when gifted with such a powerful memory, usually think of arranging and classifying the information which they have collected during their earlier course of miscellaneous reading, the tumults of Corsica, and subsequently the siege of Toulon, carried him into those scenes of war and business which were his element during the rest of his life, and down to the period we now speak of.
The want of information which we have noticed, he supplied, as most able men do, by the assistance derived from conversing with persons possessing knowledge, and capable of communicating it. No one was ever more dexterous than Napoleon at extracting from individuals the kind of information which each was best qualified to impart; and in many cases, while in the act of doing so, he contrived to conceal his own ignorance, even of that which he was anxiously wishing to know. But although in this manner he might acquire facts and results, it was impossible to make himself master, on such easy terms, of general principles, and the connexion betwixt them and the conclusions which they lead to.
OSSIAN.