To a mind like that of Chateaubriand, reposing in solitude when Napoleon was acting with such marvellous effect in the world, the character and qualities of that wonderful man could not fail to be a constant object of solicitude and observation. It has been already noticed that he braved the Emperor in the plenitude of his power, and essentially contributed, in the crisis of his fate, to his dethronement, and the re-establishment of the ancient line of princes. But, as is not unusual with persons of his highly wrought and generous temper of mind, his hostility to the Emperor declined with the termination of his authority, and his admiration for his genius rose with the base desertion of the revolutionary crowd who had fawned upon him when on the throne. The following observations on the style of his writings, indicate the growth of this counter feeling, and are in themselves equally just and felicitous:-- "His partisans have sought to make of Buonaparte a perfect being; a model of sentiment, of delicacy, of morality, and of justice--a writer like Cæsar and Thucydides, an orator like Demosthenes, a historian like Tacitus. The public discourses of Napoleon, his sonorous phrases in the tent and at the council board, are the less inspired by the spirit of prophecy, that many of the catastrophes which he announced have not been accomplished, while the warlike Isaiah himself has disappeared. Prophecies of doom which follow without reaching states become ridiculous. It is their accomplishment which renders them sublime. During sixteen years, Napoleon was the incarnation of destiny. Destiny now is mute, and he, too, should be so. Buonaparte was not a Cæsar; his education had neither been learnedly nor carefully conducted: half a stranger, he was ignorant of the first rules of our language, and could hardly spell it; but what did it signify, after all, that his expression was defective?--he gave the law to the universe. His bulletins have the most thrilling of all eloquence--that of victory. Sometimes, during the intoxications of success, they affected to be written on a drum-head: in the midst of the most lugubrious accents, something emerged which excites a smile. I have read all that Napoleon has written--the first manuscripts of his infancy, his love-letters to Josephine, the five volumes of his discourses, bulletins, and orders; but I have found nothing which so truly portrays the character of that great man, when in adversity, as the following autograph note left at Elba:-- "'My heart refuses to share in ordinary joys as ordinary sorrows. "'Not having given myself life, I am not entitled to take it away. "'My bad genius appeared to me and announced my end; which I found at Leipsic. "'I have conjured up the terrible spirit of innovation, which will overrun the world.'