NAPOLEONANA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2152, 23 May 1895, Page 42

NAPOLEON ANA.

The Napoleon craz^, which started some months ago in the United States, is now spreading throughout the whole world. Why 1 Nobody knows. Pcrhi-ps it id because, at tbe end of the century, we are btgiut.ing to look back and fee what the last 95 years bave taught us. A couple of years ago there was offered foi sale in Paris a shirt once the property of the Man of D.&tiuy. It realised the insignificant sum of £4. To-day £50 would not buy it. In Puris, and in London for the matter of that, Lntidredr- of artists are busy reproducing by tbo gross portraits— mostly jniniaiutefc — of Napoleon and his wives. In Paris, at the present time, there are two Napoleon plays running — "Madame Sans-Gene," a farcinatlng dramatic work, given in London kst; year, which displayed Napoleon Furroutded by all the glory and pomposity of lib uoli'ar> power ; the other, a melodrama at oun of the minor theatres, id which the English come in for the customary amount of ridicule. Tbe villain of Una pieca is naturally " Sirudsonlo " (Sir Hudson Low). One of the most characteristic and interresting relics is his gold bath, now preserved at Fontainebleau. The champion bathteker of the century, be frequently spent as mrjch as four or five hours at a time in one, dictating his despatches and interviewing >lini6tsrs (he while. Doubtless the progress of the disease of which he died was accelerated by this peculiar habit. And, apropos of hie death, it is interesting to note that when be passed away the greater portion of hie body was brought to England, and was for many years preserved at the Rojal College of Surgeons, Lincoln's Inn Field*. It wai brought over for a significant reason. Daring his imprisonment Napoleon

had always assorted that tho English Government wao trying to poison him; and the doctors thought it necessary to transport the vital portion of his remains, in order that the disease from which he died might be plainly shown. Autographs of Napoleon have greatly increased in value. Ten yoars ago a genuine letter of Napoleon could be bought for anything under a sovereign. To-duy, despite the fact that at many periods of his career the Emperor was a voluminous correspondent, he counts himself happy who purchases a few lines signed with the well-known scrawl for as ma>>y pounds, ! It is a curious fact that tbe French them- ' selves do not possess so many relic 3of their greatest man as the linglish and tbe Americans. The visitor to Paris today will find very few things worth seeing that once belonged to him.