Produced by David Widger
By BOURRIENNE, CONSTANT and STEWARTON
1.
MEMOIRS OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
By LOUIS ANTOINE FAUVELET DE BOURRIENNE
His Private Secretary
Edited by R. W. Phipps
Colonel, Late Royal Artillery
2.
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PRIVATE LIFE OF NAPOLEON, Complete
By CONSTANT
PREMIER VALET DE CHAMBRE
TRANSLATED BY WALTER CLARK
3.
MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF ST. CLOUD
BY STEWARTON
BEING SECRET LETTERS FROM A GENTLEMAN AT PARIS TO A NOBLEMAN IN LONDON
By LOUIS ANTOINE FAUVELET DE BOURRIENNE
His Private Secretary
Edited by R. W. Phipps
Colonel, Late Royal Artillery
1891
In introducing the present edition of M. de Bourrienne's Memoirs to thepublic we are bound, as Editors, to say a few Words on the subject.Agreeing, however, with Horace Walpole that an editor should not dwellfor any length of time on the merits of his author, we shall touch butlightly on this part of the matter. We are the more ready to abstainsince the great success in England of the former editions of theseMemoirs, and the high reputation they have acquired on the EuropeanContinent, and in every part of the civilised world where the fame ofBonaparte has ever reached, sufficiently establish the merits of M. deBourrienne as a biographer. These merits seem to us to consist chieflyin an anxious desire to be impartial, to point out the defects as well asthe merits of a most wonderful man; and in a peculiarly graphic power ofrelating facts and anecdotes. With this happy faculty Bourrienne wouldhave made the life of almost any active individual interesting; but thesubject of which the most favourable circumstances permitted him to treatwas full of events and of the most extraordinary facts. The hero of hisstory was such a being as the world has produced only on the rarestoccasions, and the complete counterpart to whom has, probably, neverexisted; for there are broad shades of difference between Napoleon andAlexander, Caesar, and Charlemagne; neither will modern history furnishmore exact parallels, since Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick the Great,Cromwell, Washington, or Bolivar bear but a small resemblance toBonaparte either in character, fortune, or extent of enterprise. Forfourteen years, to say nothing of his projects in the East, the historyof Bonaparte was the history of all Europe!
With the copious materials he possessed, M. de Bourrienne has produced awork which, for deep interest, excitement, and amusement, can scarcely beparalleled by any of the numerous and excellent memoirs for which theliterature of France is so justly celebrated.
M. de Bourrienne shows us the hero of Marengo and Austerlitz in hisnight-gown and slippers—with a 'trait de plume' he, in a hundredinstances, places the real man before us, with all his personal habitsand peculiarities of manner, temper, and conversation.
The friendship between Bonaparte and Bourrienne began in boyhood, at theschool of Brienne, and their unreserved intimacy continued during themost brilliant part of Napoleon's career. We have said enough, themotives for his writing this work and his competency for the task will bebest explained in M. de Bourrienne's own words, which the reader willfind in the Introductory Chapter.
M. de B