The autumn of the year 1803 was one of the finest in the early part of that period of the present century which we now call “Empire.” Rain had refreshed the earth during the month of October, so that the trees were still green and leafy in November. The French people were beginning to put faith in a secret understanding between the skies and Bonaparte, then declared Consul for life,--a belief in which that man owes part of his prestige; strange to say, on the day the sun failed him, in 1812, his luck ceased! About four in the afternoon on the fifteenth of November, 1803, the sun was casting what looked like scarlet dust upon the venerable tops of four rows of elms in a long baronial avenue,…
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