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Ch. XIX.]
the Emperor Napoleon.
223

nothing in Bonaparte's history shews the existence of such a vice. It was one of the numerous and sad results of boundless ambition, united to unlimited power. In aiming at gigantic undertakings, he forgot to calculate the waste of human life which the execution of his projects necessarily involved.

There was a lady, the wife of an officer in the 66th regiment, a Mrs. Baird, who sang and played very well; among her favourite songs was a monody upon the Duke d'Enghien. I learned this, and sang it to Napoleon one day at Madame Bertrand's. He was pleased with the air, and asked me what it was. I shewed it to him: there was a vignette on the cover of the music, representing a man standing in a ditch, with a bandage round his eyes and a lantern tied to his waist; in front of him several soldiers, with their muskets levelled in the act of firing. He asked what it meant. I told him it was intended to

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