He got his meals at the canteen, passed the night near the camps, and in the morning, armed with a spade as though on his way to join a working party, he would go all over the island and examine the works, lying down among the osiers to make a hurried sketch of them. The next night he would go and make his report to the Austrians, and come back to continue his observations. He was brought before a courtmartial and condemned to death; but the bitter regret which he expressed for having served the enemies of France disposed the Emperor to commute the penalty. When, however, the spy proposed to deceive the Archduke by going to make a false report on what he had seen, and coming back to tell the French what the Austrians were doing, the Emperor, disgusted at this new piece of infamy, abandoned him to his fate, and let him be shot."
XIV.
NAPOLEON AS HAROUN-AL-RASCHID.
Amid the many unpleasant impressions which Taine's tremendous indictment of Napoleon leaves on the mind, none is more odious than that left by Taine's picture of the Emperor in his Court. Rude, boorish, vulgar, inconsiderate to malignity, mischievous to brutality, he is drawn—passing from courtier to courtier, and even from lady to lady, with a look that froze, a sneer that wounded, a
