These narratives of Letitia, this enthusiasm which her glowing
language awoke in the heart of the child, this whole education which
Letitia gave to her children, became the corner-stone of their
future. As a sower, Letitia scattered the seed from which hero and
warrior were to spring forth, and the grain which fell into the
heart of her little Napoleon found a good soil, and grew and
prospered, and became a laurel-tree, which adorned the whole family
of the Bonapartes with the blooming crown of immortality.

Great men are ever much more the sons of their mother than of the
father, while seldom have great men seen their own greatness survive
in their sons. This is a wonderful secret of Nature, which perhaps
cannot be explained, but which cannot be denied.

Goethe was the true son of his talented and noble mother, but he
could leave as a legacy to his son only the fame of a name, and not
his genius. Henry IV., the son of a noble, spiritual and large-
hearted Jeanne de Navarre, could not leave to France, which
worshipped and loved her king, could not leave to his people, a
successor who resembled him, and who would inherit his sharp-
sightedness, his prudence, his courage, and his greatness of soul.
His son and successor was Louis XIII., a king whose misfortune it
was ever to be overruled, ever to be humbled, ever to stand in the
shade of two superior natures, which excited his envy, but which he
was never competent to overcome; ever overshadowed by the past
glories which his father's fame threw upon him, overshadowed by the
ruler and mentor of his choice, his minister, the Cardinal de
Richelieu, who darkened his whole sad existence.

Napoleon was the son of his mother, the large-hearted and high-