The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-27 00:00:00

Our authority is the present Right Hon. the Presi-
dent of the Board of Control, Sir John Cam Hob-
house. In 1815, during the whole of the Hundred
Days, Sir John Cam Hobhouse was living in Paris.
He there witnessed a review of the troops before the
Emperor, in the Place de Carrousel—it may have
been the very review witnessed by M. de Lamartine.
Writing a description of this review to his friend
Lord Byron, Sir John thus sketches the portrait of
Napoleon

"Two officers of the guard were kind.nough to push
me forward within ten paces of him [a distance rather
calculated to afford the writer the opportunity of a severe
scrutiny]. . . . The troops were two hours passing
before him, during the whole of which time any assassin,
unless disarmed by his face of fascination [large livid
cheeks, yellow, wrinkled, and perspiring, would hardly
come within that definition; and two hours' view at
' ten paces' distance would scarcely conceal such cha-
racteristics from a keen sighted observer] might have
shot or even stubbed him I saw nothing
but Napoleon—the single individual to destroy whom the
earth was rising from the Timais to the Thames. . . .
The principal charm of the spectacle arose from
the contemplation of the great peril to be en-
countered by the one UNDAUNTED mortal before
my eyes [no mention here of any perspiring
from anxiety.']
me like any of his portraits, except that one in
the saloon of the palace of the legislative body, nor did
I ever see any man just like him. His face was of a
deadly pale [not as yellow as an orange']; his jaws
overhung, but not so much as I had heard; his lips
thin, but partially curled, so as to give to his mouth an
inexpressible sweetness His hair was of
a dark, dusky, brown He was not fat
in the upper part of his body [not a syllable about his
head being' buried in his shoulders.']
looked about him, not knitting, but joining his eyebrows,
as if to see more minutely." [After describing a
beautiful incident which occurred in the course of
the review between the Emperor and a poor
mendicant, Sir John thus concludes his letter]—
" I see Napoleon at this moment. The unruffled
calmness of his countenance at the first movement of
the soldier relaxing softly into a look of at-
tention and kindness will never be effaced from my
memory. We are not stocks, nor stones, nor Tories.
I am not ashamed to say that on recovering from my
first surprise, I found my eyes somewhat moistened; a
weakness that never fails to overpower some persons,
when alone and unrestrained by ridicule, at the perusal
of any trait of unmixed heroism, especially of that un-
daunted tranquillity of mind which formed and finished
the master-spirits of antiquity."— fiebhouse's Letters to
Lord Byron. Vol 1., p. 33.
Now Lamartine, be it remembered, is a Frenchman,
and Hobhouse is an Englishman—Hobhouse pro-
fesses neither partiality for, nor antipathy to, Na-
poleon—Lamartine avows, as we have shown, that
he regards Napoleon with a hatred he is proud to
preserve and hopes to retain until his death. The
proportion of' credit to be given to the two witnesses
is, therefore, clearly manifest. Besides what we have
already quoted, it may not be superfluous to mention
in disproof of M. de Lamartine's villanous and pitiable
caricature, that another Englishman, Captain
Basil Hall, in his voyage from Loo Choo, "men-
tions his interview with the Captive of
St. Helena, and remarks, among other phy-
sionomical traits, the marble-like smoothness
of his forehead—not a wrinkle having blurred its
serenity, even under the hell of Sir Hudson Lowe's
insolence. M. de Lamartine speaks of the Emperor's
image having been, since 1815, flattered in bronze and
marble—and yet it would be rather difficult to point
out a bust of more superb beauty in feature, or of
more sublime grandeur in expression, than the colossal
statue in white marble by Canova, now preserved in
the hall at Apsley House. And Canova was a Re-
publican in his predilections, and certainly no flatterer.
Elsewhere M. de Lamartine has the coolness, we had
almost said the effrontery, to declare that the French
people, detesting the imperial regime, had no part
whatever in the enthusiasm of the Return from Elba.
In the recent election of the representative of the
Napoleonian dynasty, by universal suffrage, through
the ballot, to the office of President over the French
Republic, six million voices have given that assertion
the lie ! We lament the falsities to which we have
here referred, as being derogatory to the great-
ness of mind and the goodness of heart of so great
and good a man as M. de Lamartine.