THE National Quarterly Review. JANUARY, 1880. ART. I.-RISE AND FALL OF THE BONAPARTES. 1. Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire. Par L. A. THIERS. Paris. 1845-62. 2. Mémoires ou Souvenirs historiques sur Napoléon. Par LA DUCHESSE D'ABRANTES. Paris. 1831-34. THE idea has been rather a general one that, for a powerful and poetic story of kingly achievement-diversified by the lights and shadows of romantic victory and tragic disasterthe lover of such things should go back to earlier times to find it, if not in the scenes at least, in the record of the Merovingians, the Carlovingians, or the Hohenstauffens of the Middle Ages. But, within the lines of the present century and the memory of persons living, may be traced a career of "Arms and the man" as "audible and full of vent" as any other that ever went before; suggesting that the world still holds the arbitrament and game of war in especial honor, and also loves to have its currents, courses and consequences set forth in a vivid and somewhat pictorial manner, for general entertainment or instruction. The family of the Bonapartes-for the name was contracted from Buonaparte when young Napoleon had won his first French distinctions-has been one of the most remarkable in history for the magnitude and variety of events associated 2d Series: VOL. VI.-NO. I. 1 |