Walter Scott had so obviously collected for the purpose of exonerating
the then English Government.

The new idea presented to my mind led me to take up a course of
serious reading, which comprised all the "Lives" of Napoleon on which
I could lay my hands, all the St. Helena Journals, and the
commentaries which have been written since their publication. As my
knowledge of the great drama increased, I found my pro-Napoleonic
ideas increasing in fervour. Like the Psalmist when musing on the
wickedness of man, "my heart was hot within me, and at the last I
spake with my tongue."

I may here state in passing that there is no public figure who lived
before or since his time who is surrounded with anything approaching
the colossal amount of literature which is centred on this man whose
dazzling achievements amazed the world. Paradoxical though it may
appear now, in the years to come, when the impartial student has
familiarised himself with the most adverse criticisms, he will see in
this literature much of the hand of enmity, cowardice, and delusion
and, as conviction forces itself upon him, there evolve therefrom the
revelation of a senseless travesty of justice.

I offer no apology for the opinions contained in this book, which have
been arrived at as the result of many years of study and exhaustive
reading. I give the volume to the public as it is, in the hope that it
may attract in other ways to a fair examination of Napoleon's complex
and fascinating character.


WALTER RUNCIMAN.