Excerpt from The True Napoleon: A Cyclopedia of Events in His Life The book is, as its title represents, a dictionary of events. I have purposely avoided narrating scandals and intrigues of which, alas, there are many. My object is solely to present the pleasant and noble side of Napoleon's character. That he had faults, was sometimes untruthful, cruel, even vicious, is admitted, but the good he performed, the great results he achieved may possibly over-balance many of these unpleasant and bad qualities, and these I think, in a great measure, are buried be neath his many noble deeds. Again, perhaps, many with whom he had to deal and the necessity at times for prompt action warranted measures that under other circumstances would not have been justifiable. He probably did place too broad an interpretation on the adage that all is fair in love and war. Were Napoleon as remote as Caesar, Alexander, or the other great conquerors, it is possible that, like them, many of his vices and alleged cruelties would have been forgotten. Was Napoleon a good man? To quote Lord Rose bery: Ordinary measures and tests do not apply to him. In such a creature we expect prodigious virtues and vices all beyond our standard. He was not good in the sense that Wilberforce or St. Francis was good, he has said that he could not have achieved what he did had he been religious. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.