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next estimate I shall give is that of Lavalette.

Count Lavalette is the hero of one of the most romantic stories in history. Few particulars are given of that episode in his Memoirs which, nevertheless, have an interest far beyond their merely personal character. Lavalette was a brave soldier, a successful Minister, and intimate servant of Napoleon. But the great interest of this book to me is the picture it gives of the point of view of the average man during the strange events that made up the passionate drama of France from the beginning of the Revolution to the end of the Empire. I don't know how this book would strike a Frenchman; but to me it reads as an extremely fair one.