at you, but I well know what I think about you.' 'What you think about me, Citizen Lucien? Parbleu! I am curious to know. Out with it.' 'I think, Citizen Consul, that having sworn to the Constitution of the eighteenth Brumaire, as president of the Council of Five Hundred, and seeing you despise it thus, if I were not your brother I would be your enemy.' 'My enemy!' thundered Napoleon. Try it once. That's rather strong,' and he made a movement toward me as if to strike me a blow. To this day I thank God that he did not strike me, for I would not have endured it. He paused, however, before the coolness with which I faced him. 'Thou my enemy!' he screamed. 'Look, I would dash you to the earth as I do this box.' He had in his hand his snuff-box, in the lid of which was Isabey's miniature of Josephine. This he flung violently to the floor. It did not break, being received on the carpet; but the portrait fell out of the cover. I hastened to pick it up, and presenting it to Napoleon in a manner which I forced myself to make respectful, said: 'It's too bad. It's your wife's picture, not your brother, that

you have broken."" Lucien says he now retired backward toward the door, not to conform to an etiquette as yet not established at the Tuileries, but to keep in his eye this friend or enemy, as the case might be. The First Consul, however, did not follow up his beginning. Instead, he carefully picked up the box, and Lucien saw through the door, which he left open as he went away, that Napoleon was trying to put the picture back into the lid. This made him think his brother was not so angry as he wished to appear.*

"Turning it over, I made up my mind that Napoleon was trying to terrify me by this spectacle of extreme wrath, hoping to overcome my opposition. To this view I am all the more inclined, because my brother often, especially in scenes where he figured with splendor, posed as a great actor. Not at all that I believe, as some have alleged, that he

*Josephine, West Indian creole and very superstitious as she was, was much disturbed by this incident. The impending divorce was already casting its shadow before. She consulted a famous fortune-teller, Mlle. Le Normant, as to what it was best to do, who suggested covering the miniature which had run such risk with a duplicate by the same artist. This was done; the box with the double portrait is said to be still extant.

shut himself up with our common friend, the great actor Talma, to prearrange the effect of such and such oratorical gestures, or, indeed, of the folds and carriage of the imperial mantle. No; in my view, he was charged with the dramatic instinct, but his acting was always offhand (improvisé), based on the cir cumstances in which he found himself. ought, however, to confess that this scene of the broken snuff-box was so well played in its fury as to puzzle me about his real feeling. I am sure that what I said displeased him deeply."

I

"What else took place," says Lucien, "as regards the sale of Louisiana has no more personal relation to me." He makes a brief reference to another scene between the First Consul and Joseph, which indicates that the latter did not at all regard himself as routed at the engagement of the bath-tub. At the end of an argument the First Consul had become angry, and enlarged on his grievances, before which Joseph showed himself unabashed. He drove at his brother, on the contrary, with such vehemence that Napoleon was forced to leave the field, seeking refuge

But out of

in the apartments of Josephine. all this hot discussion, in which the fate of a colony was concerned, nothing came, says Lucien, except a little greater haste in the execution of his calamitous plan the sale of Louisiana for a few millions, destined to be applied to an insensate strife against Europe.

Lucien concludes, writing at a time long after, in a tone which will seem to all fraternal in spirit, and just and moderate in its judgment: "In spite of all the harm done me by this brother of mine, who became all-powerful, and in spite of the tyrannical acts with which his glorious memory has too justly been reproached, I believe that far from having a tyrant's heart his nature was fundamentally good. Pushed to an extreme of power which he did not desire himself, he might with impunity have done much more than he did, encouraged and approved by flatterers. I firmly believe he deserves thanks as much, and more even, for the evil which he did not do, having all power to do it, as for the good which can really be ascribed to him in many of the startling crises of his

career."

CHAPTER VII

LIVINGSTON AT PARIS

THE great event was at hand; but before describing the critical moment of the transfer, it will be interesting to take a look at the envoy of America, as he waits in that troubled and excited world of Paris, watching and laboring for an issue to the affair which may be of benefit to his country. Jefferson never did better than in the selection of Robert R. Livingston to represent America in this crisis. Of a distinguished line in which Scotch and Dutch were blended, he himself from an early age had shown remarkable powers and rendered extraordinary public services. He had been on the Committee of Five for drafting the Declaration of Independence; he had presided at the convention at which New York adopted the Federal Constitution, bringing about the favorable