Page:Helen Leah Reed - Napoleons young neighbour.djvu/282

252 Perhaps among all our pictures of Napoleon there is hardly one more pleasing than this of his First Consulate, when we see him walking among his gorgeously attired officers, noticeable for the simplicity of his attire. For in spite of the example of extravagant dress set by others, he is content with the plain uniform of a colonel of grenadiers or of the light infantry.

"His address is the finest I have ever seen," writes one who meets him at this time, "and said by those who have travelled to exceed not only every Prince and Potentate now in being, but even all those whose memory has come down to us. . . . While he speaks, his features are still more expressive than his words."

This is the Napoleon whom Betsy knew—this man whose simple, pleasing manners drew every one to him—every one at least whom he wished to attract. Had he cared to make the effort he might even have won Sir Hudson Lowe.

For in those earlier days, before his downfall, many an Englishman, with a deeply rooted prejudice against Napoleon, on visiting Paris, like the writer of the above, found his prejudices melt away like snow in summer.