Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1885 — Napoleon’s Watch. [ARTICLE]

Napoleon’s Watch.

. Bonaparte's mind was, in its details, low and ungentlemaplike. I suppose the narrowness of his early prospects and habits stuck to him > what we understand by gentlerhanlike feelings he knew nothing at all about; I’ll give you a curious instance. 7' I have a beautiful little watch, made by Breguet. at Paris, with a map of Spain most admirably enameled on the case. Sir Edward Paget bought it at Paris, and gave it to me. What do you think the history of this watch was—at least the history that r . Breguet told iPaget, and Paget Bonaparte had ordered it as a present to his brother, the King of Spain, but when he heard of the battle of Vittoria—he was then at Dresden in the midst of all the and negotiations of the armistice, and one would think sufficiently busy with other matters — when he heard of the batttie of Vittoria, I say, he remembered the watch he had. ordered for one whom he saw would never be King of Spain, and with whom he was angry for the loss of the battle, and he wrote from Dresden to countermand the watch, and if it should be ready, to forbid it being sent. The best apology one can make for this strange littleness is that he was offendwith Joseph; but even in that case a gentlemen would not have taken the moment when the poor devil had lost his chateaux en Espagne to take away his wateh also. . All those codicils to his will in which he bequeathed millions to the right and left, and among others left a legacy to the fellow who was accused of attempting to asssassinate me, is another proof of littleness of mind. The property he really had he had already made his discposition of. For the payment of all those high-sounding legacies there- was not the shadow of a fund. He might as well have drawn bills for ten millions on that pump at Aidgate. [We had on' oiir way driven past it.] While he was writing all these magnificent donations he knew that they were all in the air—all a falsehood. For my part, I can see no magnanimity in a lie; and I confess that I think one who could play such tricks but a shabby fellow. — Croker’s Conversations with the Duke of Wellington.