much. There is something " Bullfroggish"
in that imitative austerity which the great
ones of the earth affect in their sleeping
accommodation. The hard pallet of Charles
the Fifth at Yuste; the divided bed of Louis
Philippe, one half of which was a knotty
palliasse, and the other half, in delicate
attention to his queen, a feather bed; this
severe, uncompromising bed of the French
Cæsar; even our own Great Duke's spare
mattrass and simple iron bedstead; are not to
my mind any very convincing proofs of
their owners' abstemiousness and hardihood.
Hard beds are not conducive to early
rising; nor are they necessarily productive of
self-denial. One of the laziest men I ever
knew, used an iron bedstead fit for a Trappist,
where he lay on straw, like Margery Daw.
Napoleon could have slept anywhere. In a
chair, as at Austerlitz; in his bath, as at
St. Helena; on horseback; in his box at the
opera; in his carriage; standing, even. He
wanted sleep so little, and used a bed so
seldom, that he might as well have had no
bed. Still, if a bed were necessary to his
camp equipage, and as part of his state and
appanage, he might surely have had a
bedstead with a little carving and gilding, with
some velvet and golden bees, some eagles and
N's about it; however hard the mattrass or
low the pillow might have been. I may be
wrong, but there is affectation and sham
humility about this shabby camp-bed. It
seems to say, boastingly, " See what a
philosopher I am; see how I despise the pomps
and vanities of the world. Not only will I
have a portable bed (which simply would be
reasonable), but it shall be of the ugliest form
and the clumsiest material. I am a grander
monarque than Louis Quatorze; yet see how
I can dispense with that solemn old mountebank's
gigantic four-poster, with its daïs of
three stages, its carvings and gildings, its
plumed capitals and silken cords. Yet I am
as grand upon this workhouse-looking pallet,
as though I slept in the Great Bed of Ware."

But, what could the contemner of the
fripperies of luxury, want with silver-gilt
boothooks and a golden stewpan? For, here,
proudly displayed upon a field of crimson
velvet, are all the articles forming the
Emperor's necessaire de voyage. Besides the
boothook and the saucepan we have here
knives, forks, plates, tea and coffee-pots,
corkscrews, penknives, scissors, spoons,
bodkins and toothpicks all in the precious
metals. Here is the necessaire de toilette,
too: razors, lathering brushes, shaving pots,
and scent-bottles:—ay, my lord, scent-bottles
—one, religiously preserved by General
Bertrand (I think), has some of the scent used
by the Emperor yet remaining in it. Napoleon
scented! The conqueror of Europe
perfumed like a milliner, or that certain lord
that Harry Hotspur saw! Cæsar with a
golden stewpan!

The writing-table or secretaire of the Man,
which stands hard by, with a worn leathern
arm-chair, looks far more businesslike and
consistent. It is as plain as plain can be—
indeed I have the very counterpart of it—up,
goodness and the waiter only know how
many pair of stairs, in the Quartier
Latin in the City of Paris. But, it is
only in form that the two articles of
furniture resemble one another. For the
Emperor's writing-table bears, oh! such
unmistakeable signs of hard work, indomitable
perseverance, and iron will! It is splashed
in innumerable places with ink; it has been
punched with penknives and scorched with
hot sealing-wax. The leathern covering of
the top is frayed with the contact of papers
and elbows; it has been worn into holes by
the drumming of anxious fingers. Perhaps
this table is the most suggestively eloquent
of all the relics in this strange room. Truly,
the hat covered the head, the sword begirt
the side; on that bed Napoleon slept, on that
saddle sat, with that diadem crowned, with
that scent perfumed, himself. But, on that
table lay, hundreds of times, the paper on to
which flowed by the duct of the pen the
mighty current of the Emperor's thoughts.
He must have sat at this table crowning and
uncrowning kings in his mind, crushing up
dynasties with a phrase, devoting thousands
of men to death by a word. This table with
the leathern top was an unconscious Atlas,
and held up a world of thought. What may
not have been written there! The draught of
the Milan decree, the virtual death-warrant
of the Duke d'Enghien; suggestions pregnant
with sense and will, to the subtle lawyers who
were drawing up the Code; bulletins of
victory and defeat, proclamations, short notes of
playful affection in the early days to
Josephine—later, to another bride. At this
table may have been signed the decree for
the fundamental reorganisation of the Théâtre
Français, which decree—vanity!—emanated
from the Kremlin at Moscow. At this table
may have been signed the last abdication,
which—vanity of vanities!—was done in an
hotel in the Faubourg Saint Honoré. Were
not the table dumb, it could tell how often
Napoleon had sat at it, radiant with joy,
trembling with anxiety, frowning with anger,
white with despair. How the imprecation
was muttered, the air hummed between the
teeth, the pen anxiously gnawed, the devil's
tattoo beaten with the fingers, the vain word
or meaningless caricature scrawled on the
blotting paper; how the sigh stole forth, or
the brow contracted, or the smile lighted up
sheet and table like a sun, as the phrase was
weighed, the word sought for, the thought
summoned. Only this table could tell us
whether the uncouth, misshapen, almost
illegible scrawl, which Napoleon wrote, was
really his natural handwriting: or whether, as
some, and not of his enemies, assert, it was
designedly simulated in order to conceal the
faultiness of his orthography.