THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON

by William Makepeace Thackeray

AKA Michael Angelo Titmarch.



I. On the Disinterment of Napoleon at St. Helena

II. On the Voyage from St. Helena to Paris

III. On the Funeral Ceremony




I.--ON THE DISINTERMENT OF NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA.


MY DEAR ----,--It is no en the Voyage from St. Helena asy task in this
world to distinguish between what is great in it, and what is mean; and
many and many is the puzzle that I have had in reading History (or the
works of fiction which go by that name), to know whether I should laud
up to the skies, and endeavor, to the best of my small capabilities, to
imitate the remarkable character about whom I was reading, or whether
I should fling aside the book and the hero of it, as things altogether
base, unworthy, laughable, and get a novel, or a game of billiards, or
a pipe of tobacco, or the report of the last debate in the House, or any
other employment which would leave the mind in a state of easy vacuity,