Early Life, and First Campaigns, of Napoleon Bonaparte

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Numerous as are the biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte, the reading public may not look ungraciously upon a young American's attempt to chronicle, from original materials, the early deeds of that extraordinary being, whose good and bad qualities have so intensely fixed the attention of the world. While all-adoring Frenchmen have sought to enhance the brilliancy of their idol's career, by the false glare of enthusiastic flattery; British historians have been stimulated by a fantastic zeal for hereditary royalty, to blacken the reputation of the once powerful enemy of their nation: - and it is only by submitting these contradictory views to the test of a trans-atlantic balance, that they can be reduced to the standard of truth. This idea originated with Major Henry Lee, of Virginia, who was at Paris when Sir Walter Scott published his notoriously unjust Life of Napoleon. Considering the name of the author of Waverley less glorious than that of the citizen Emperor - his memory less sacred than truth, the talented American determined to repair the injustice by an impartial history. The first volume was published at Paris, in January, 1837, and a few days afterwards the labors of the gifted author were prematurely suspended by his untimely decease.<br><br>Marshal Soult, Gen. Pelet, and other veterans of the Imperial Army, had taken a great interest in Maj. Lee's work, and when (in 1846,) the subscriber commenced his researches in the Archives of the War Department at Paris, (as Historical Agent of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,) he was induced to carry out the idea of his gifted countryman. Every facility was afforded him by the French Government, and in addition to the copies of important manuscripts from their Archives, he obtained the curious journals of several notable Americans who were in France during Napoleon's career. The Emperor's early homes, his palaces, and over forty of his sixty victorious battle-fields were carefully