CUNEGONDA AND HER SONS IN PARIS-XAVIER'S DE- SCRIPTION OF EVENTS-HER HOME-COMING-THE ROME. CASTLE OF SANT' ANGELO (from an old print) Photo by R. Moscioni. TWO SKETCHES FROM THE ALBUM OF CUNEGONDA FACING PAGE 4 28 MARCHESA PORZIA, WIFE OF FRANCESCO PATRIZI ROME. THE CHURCH OF S. LUIGI DEI FRANCESI, FACING ROME. Castle of SanT' ANGELO (under Pius IX.) 42 44 84 98 II2 Photo by R. Moscioni. CASTLE OF BARD, on the Road FROM TURIN To Cour HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION BY J. CRAWFORD FRASER It would seem probable that the earliest actual perception of what he was wont to call his "star" came to Napoleon during the hours immediately following upon the Coup d'État of the eighteenth of Brumaire, Year VII-in the terms of the Gregorian Calendar, the ninth of November, 1799. For he had just made a first successful, if terrifying experience, in his own person, of the supremacy of deeds over words; that is to say, the supremacy of armed force over the clamour and divided counsels of windbag politicians. For the first time he had dared to measure himself with the constitution of his country; and, after passing through the most momentous hours of his career, had emerged the conqueror by a hair's-breadththanks to the superior courage and presence of mind of Lucien Bonaparte in rallying the soldiers to the defence of his elder brother against the enraged representatives of the people. What Napoleon's innermost thoughts were, precisely, during the night which followed in the privacy of his study in the little house that he was occupying in the Rue de la Victoire, will never be known. This much only is certain, that he emerged from his vigil a new man in many respects, a man convinced of his own instrumentality in the designs of Providence for the regeneration of mankind; and one, consequently, not to be hindered in the carrying out of his ideas by any human interference. From that moment "The little Cæsar," as Vaudal styles him, " frail, nervous, impressionable, with his habitual horror of physical contact with the mob," became the ruler indifferent to all opinions except his own. As he saw it now, all that he had done, hitherto, or that he had it in mind, however vaguely, to do in future, was by the direct inspiration and in conformity with the will of that Heaven which had chosen him from among all the sons of men to be its vicegerent upon earth-a conviction in which he was confirmed by his elevation to the Consulate and the victory of Marengo. At this point, however, it was that he found himself confronted with the greatest of all the problems which had ever presented themselves to him for solution; namely, the reconciliation of what he believed to be his destiny with what, as a Catholic, he never ceased to believe to be the spiritual powers invested in the Catholic Church for the welfare of souls. In a sense, it seemed to him that this could only be accomplished by taking the Church into partnership with him-a partnership of which the "Con |