The Source of Napoleon's Genius.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 849, 8 June 1888, Page 4

The Source of Napoleon's Genius.

Napoleon, as all the world knows, ate very plain food and little of it, though always with hunger and rapidly. A little claret was all he drank; a single glass of Madeira would flush his whole countenance. He was neither an eater nor a judge of eating, wrote Careme, but he was grateful (was he ?) to M. de Talleyrand for the style in which be lived. He differed widely from that poor Stanislaus of Poland, who fondly studied onion soup in the inn kitchen at Chalons. Napoleon had a strange theory about his bile. There is no personal defect that a man cannot get himself to be vain of for one reason or another. ‘ Don’t you know,’ said ha to the Comte de Segur, ‘ that every man that’s worth anything is bilious ? ’Tis the hidden fire. By the help of its excitement I see clear in difficult junctures. It wins me my battles !’ Careme himself ate sparingly and drank nothing—a sort of Moses of the Promised Land by choice. —Saturday Review.