The figure in the opera box was slender and trim. He who sat there was only five feet, four and a half inches high; but his head was fine, heavy, symmetrical. His features twitched when he was disturbed, but were beautiful when he smiled. To a profound observer he looked dangerous. He had the faculty of making his face signify nothing at all. He had been begotten an insular Italian, but was born a Frenchman. His wife, a Creole, more than six years older than he, was in the box with him. She sat at the front, and was seen by thousands. She _wished_ to be seen; and when the pit shouted in the direction of the box she smiled a little smile, with a puckered mouth--for her teeth were not good. The birthplace of this man had been oddly set on the map of the world, for the meridian of Discovery and the parallel of Conquest intersect at the birthplace of NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. The birthlines of Cæsar and Columbus--drawn, the one due west from Rome, the other due south from Genoa--cross each other within a few miles of Ajaccio! It is a circumstance that might well incline one to astrology. About the birth of great men cycles of fiction grow. Friends and enemies alike invent significant circumstances. The traducers of Napoleon have said that he was illegitimate--that his father was the French marshal Marboeuf. They also say, on better grounds, that the marriage of Letitia Ramolino to Carlo di Buonaparte was not solemnized until 1767--that the first two children were therefore born out of wedlock. On the other hand, the idol-worshippers would fain have Napoleon born as a god or Titan. Premature pangs seize the mother at church. She hurries home, barely reaching her apartment when the heroic babe is delivered, without an accoucheur, on a piece of tapestry inwrought with an effigy of Achilles! This probably occurred. It was the 15th of August, 1769. Thus, as it were before the Corsican saw the light of day in this world, dispute began about him. It has been continued for a hundred and twenty-eight years. Whatever else he succeeded in doing--whatever else he failed to do--he at least did succeed in dividing the civilized world into two parties; he made himself the subject of a controversy which has not ceased to the present hour. The reason, no doubt, is that we do not as yet understand human history and the part which the individual plays in the progress of events. Nearly all men begin with a prejudice in judging all other men, and nearly all men end as they begin. So it has been in the case of Bonaparte. After a while we shall see things more clearly; after a while we shall be able to interpret _men_--but not yet.