Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1906-08-03
NAPOLEON'S BOOKS.
The Great Military Genius as IN
Omnfyorous Reader.

OmnfyOrous Reader.
The command In Italy seems to have
been Napoleon's renaissance. As it
awOke his ambition, SO it stimulated
his intellect. Henceforward history,
institutions. biography, travel. polite
literature, poetry, became permanent
interest of his mind whenever the ex-
igencies of war and state allowed him
to read anything save dispatches, re-
ports and bulletins. He always re-
NAMED an omnivorous if not deep
reader.
If Napoleon's enemies could have
looked into his boxes OF books, espe-
ciaIly after 1909. or seen the instruc-
lions he sent to his librarian, they
might have anticipated the future more
accurately. He always ''read up" for
q coming campaign the history, geog-
raphy, institutions of the country and
people with whom he was going to
come in contact. 1t is exceedingly in
teresting to see this projection of his
thought into the future, as indicated
by his reading. This is particularly
true of the Russian campaign.
This historical material displaced
most of the novels and the poems in
the campaign of 1912. But in the hot
summer days of that year, while the
army waited long in Poland, the en-
peror sometimes found that moments
of leisure went by on leaden wings,
and prayed for more diverting litera-
ture The faithful Meneval hastily dis
patched an order for ''some good new
novels, or old ones that he is not famil-
lar with, or some memoirs that would
make agreeable reading"
The fate of this travelling library
was the fate of the entire army of
1S12-it was lost. The books of the
emperor probably went to boil the tea
of some Cossack soldier, even as Ju-
not's veterans plundered Spanish libra
ries to find material for their camp
fires. One interesting detail of its fate
has been preserved. On the road to
Russia the emperor borrowed certain
books from the royal library in Ores
den. In the retreat from Moscow these
also were lost. The effort the emperor
made to repair this loss entities him to
place In the ancient and honorable
company of book lovers. The man who
had lost an army of 100000 men, who
saw Europe marching against him
from the Ural to the bay of Biscay,
took time and thought enough, on Feb.
7, 1913, upon his return to Paris, to
give express orders TO procure dupli-
Gates of these volumes at any price
and see that they We're sent to Ores
den.
In 1908 Napoleon formed the idea of
having a travelling library, in order to
make his hours of intellectual recrea-
ton Independent of the exigencies of
campaign or the delays of a courier.
Obviously such collection of books
would have to be selected with great
care, that the library might be port
able one and, consequently, the minute
instructions as to its care are, as 1t
were, a picture of his mind.
The distribution of subjects was ae
follows: Forty volumes of religion,
forty of epic poetry, forty of the drama,
sixty volumes of other poetry, sixty
volumes of history and 100 novels. "In
order to complete the quota" ran the
instructions, 1.-The balance shall be made
up of historical memoirs" Among the
religious works were the Old and New
Testaments and the Koran, works on
church history, including some upon the
Lutheran and the Calvinist movements.
The epics included Homer, Lucan, Tas-
SO, the "Henriade," and so forth. The
drama, selected tragedies of Corneille,
Racine and VOltaire. Comedy Napo-
leon could not endure. Not a word of
Moliere," he says. The history included
some good chronological works, stand
ard histories Of France, like that Of
Mably, Machiavelli's "Discourses on
Ivy" some of Voltaire's historical
writing. Montesquieu's Esprit des
LOIS and a French translation of Glib
bon. Among the novels were the "Nou-
velIe Heloise," lie Sage's "Contes" and
French versions of Richardson's and
Fielding's works. Indeed, of English
fiction Napoleon was very fond.-James
Westfall Thompson in Atlantic.