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.