NAPOLEON AND HIS DETRACTORS.

[Kansas City Times, August 10, 1888.]

This is the title of a book written by Prince Napoleon, which is just now getting well under fire in England. If it has been translated and reprinted in this country it is well; if it has not been so done the sooner it is done the better-all of which means that the sooner it is done the sooner will some publishing house put a pile of money into its pocket.

The animus against this publication, on the part of the London Illustrated News is that it touches up strong points that are facile and leaves untouched other points which are still more facile and still more unassailable.

Let us look into this question a little bit. The News says that he disposes in a most masterly manner of Bourienne, Madame de Remusat, Miot de Melito, the Abbe de Pradt and Prince Metternich, and then adds-we quote it literally: "But what is to be said of a champion who enters and quits these particular lists without venturing to touch the shield of M Lanfrey?"

The shield of M. Lanfrey! Angels and ministers of grace, defend us; why not say the shield of Sir Walter Scott? The last wrote to be a baronet. He prostituted his splendid genius to pull down a man who, in his Scottish heart of hearts he must have adored, and who-in so many elements of his character-must have been near of kin to all those heroes who stood out like men of iron from the pages of "Marmion," the "Lady of the Lake,' Rokeby" and the Lord of the Isles."

99.66

Lanfrey! One approaches him as one might well approach a snake. Did he attack the genius of Napoleon as a soldier? he could not. Did he attack his campaigns, where every capital was an outpost and every sovereign a mere cup-bearer? he could not. Did he attack his capacity as a lawgiver, wherein he wrote like Tacitus and collated like Justinian? he could not. What, then, did he do? He wrote so that the Bourbons might give him the gewgaw of a ribbon and the grimcrack of a decoration. He wrote of Napoleon's private life; of his supposed lusts and his supposed love affairs; of My Lord Petulancy and My Lord Impatience; of how he took ten minutes to dinner and ten hours to his studies; of how he had shot Palm, a bookseller, and d'Enghien, a prince; of how he made grenadiers out of stable grooms and marshals of France out of men who had bled horses. Poor babbler! Mme. de Remusat could have done better than that. Her grievance was that groping one night-certainly en dishabille-to find Napoleon's chamber she stumbled across Roustem, the Arab, swart, wide awake and lying prone across the threshold. She fled, shrieking, just as the tawny hand of the east clutched at the white garments of western civilization. From that hour Madame de Remusat looked upon Napoleon as an ogre. If they had embraced, perhaps she would have looked upon him as an angel. Who knows? When Don Juan found Miss Fitz Fulke at the end of the corridor, whatever else happened, no skeleton has ever yet outlined itself to prove Miss Blue Stocking right, or to prove the propriety of putting a spray or two of lilacs on the grave where Miss Prim Propriety lies buried. Lanfrey Remusat! While attacking Napoleon for the large embraces that happened in his God-appointed career, contemporaneous history has perhaps forgotten that Lanfrey was a Bourbon sneak and Madame a baffled lady of the bed chamber.

The News makes other points which we desire especially to refer to. It admits everything as connected with Napoleon's military genius; but it qualifies everything because the military side of his character does not comport with his moral side. In proof of this he cites several instances. Perhaps the most salient is this one wherein he refers to the author of the book:

Nor has he a word to bestow on such a wretched business as his uncle's legacy to Cantillon, the French officer who was tried for an attempt on the life of the Duke of Wellington-perhaps the most hopelessly ignoble bequest which has ever found its way into any testamentary document on record.

We challenge the record to prove that Napoleon ever left a legacy to Cantillon because he proposed to assassinate the Duke of Wellington. He denied it. Every instinct and action of his whole life proved it to be a lie. Of course it is easy to enclose in the last will and testament of such a man as Bonaparte, administered upon by the Bourbons, the final development of a thousand daggers; but all such stuff as this, and all such stuff as the Wellington assassination is bogus.

Per contra. When the dead body of George Cadoudal was searched he had on his person a hundred and some odd sovereigns of British money. When Luttrel was grabbed with more British gold on his person, and a bale or two of incendiary proclamations ready to be issued out of hand, he was not shot but set free. The whole career of Napoleon was merciful to such a degree that every unbiased historian has taken notice of it. We do not discuss these moral aspects of Bonaparte's character. We only contend against the proposition that the News sets up, that he must be judged by his moral example-that is to say, whether he kissed a woman more or less, whether he pardoned a criminal more or less, or whether he bore himself circumspectly more or less.

Nothing of Lodi! Nothing of the Pyramids! Nothing of Montenotte! Nothing of Arcola! Nothing of Marengo! Nothing of the transfiguration-one half inspiration and the other half endowment-where the corporal became emperor.

The News does not even skim the surface. It sums up everything, but it does not deliver.

THE BEST ONE HUNDRED BOOKS.

A RECENT LIST ARRANGED BY MAJOR J. N. EDWARDS.

[Kansas City Times, April 7th, 1889.

"A man there came-whence none could tell

Bearing a touchstone in his hand,
And by its unerring spell

Tested all things in the land.

Quick birth to transmutation smote,

The fair to foul-the foul to fair

Purple nor ermine did he spare,

Nor scorn the dusky coat.'

If the west ever produced a man who got at the heart of things, that man was John Edwards. If it has ever produced a man of purely chivalric spirit, of high courage and noble endeavor, a man who knew and loved truth and honor and uprightness and manly bearing, who hated shams and pretense and cant and low cunning, that man was John Edwards. It made no difference how cunning, how deep the deception, how thick the veneering, he went to the core; and it made no difference how rude and rugged and moss-grown the rock, he found the diamond, and found it at the first stroke of his pick. "He was a good judge of a man. Made by his early education and association somewhat provincial, yet he wrote "Bon Voyage, Miss Nellie," and no native born New Englander with a traditional Mayflower ancestry laid so pure and high a tribute on the grave of Henry Ward Beecher. No, he ceased to be provincial save when as a partisan he was "in the saddle and moving things." A born soldier, he knew intuitively when he was in an impregnable position and rested himself, caught at a glance the seam in his opponent's armor, and in a trice his sword-point was

through it. He was "quick to hear the clarion call, the war steed's neigh, the brave man's battle cry"; and when the call to the rescue came, when battle had to be made, his voice was heard clearest and loudest, and at the front. But, molded on the heroic type, life to him was always heroic; and if disaster followed, if the battle had been waged and lost, if defeat had come to high courage, if death had laid his hand on a man, or sorrow had so much as touched him with her finger, though an enemy, then no hand was laid more gently on the wound than his, no sadder dirge was wailed over Iolanthe's bier, and no cooing mother ever crooned a sweeter song to soothe her fretted babe.

Dying in the prime of manhood, his life so full, was yet well rounded and complete. The concentration or fixedness of purpose that ever goes hand in hand with genius, was always well upon him, and carried him out beyond the minor affairs of life. Great men have great thoughts and great purposes, and deal only with great things, and John Edwards was a great man. It was of little moment to him whether his own or his friend's garners were full, but it was a matter of great moment to him whether the outlook for food for next year was equal to the needs of the human race. The broils of the neighborhood did not attract him; but with the eye of a seer he watched night and day the movements on the chess-board of Europe; for his own personal salvation he cared little, but for the salvation of the world, of whatever brotherhood or creed, he would have offered up his own life. With his broad liberality he sacrificed personal gain to the public weal, buried his animosities for the good of his cause, and buried his cause for the good of his race. And yet this man, with the burden of a mission on his shoulders, who led in the forlorn hope, who was full of the wisdom and traditions of a classic and heroic past, who dealt hard blows with his sword, and wrote hard words with his pen, was as simple and modest as a young girl, depreciating his own efforts and blushing to hear himself praised. In a provincial town, there lived and died a woman who had barely reached