THE POWER OF NAPOLEON'S EYE.
[TO THE EDITOls OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—There is a story in Eckermann's " Conversations with Goethe" which enforces in a curious, if somewhat comic, manner the late Admiral Eden's recollection as to Napoleon's piercing eye. It is given under the date Jan- uary 17th, 1827. Goethe said :—" One day at the Tuileries a marchand de modes offered, in Napoleon's presence, some valuable goods to his consort. As he showed no disposition to buy anything, the man gave him to understand that he was doing but little in that way for his wife. Napoleon did not answer a word, but looked upon the man with such a look that he packed up his things at once, and never showed his face again." "Did he do this when Consul? " asked Frau von Goethe. " Probably when Emperor," replied Goethe, "for otherwise his look would not have been so formidable. I cannot but laugh at the man, who was pierced through by the glance, and who saw himself already beheaded or shot." Napoleon had the power of veiling the terrors of his eye, for Madame de Stag complained that he could make his eye absolutely dull (tern) and expressionless. She admits that she was trying to read his face, and he, of course, knew it. Where she says this I cannot remember, but I have read it in some work of hers, and it happened early in Napoleon's career.
—I am, Sir, &c., W. B. DUFFIELD. Brownings, near Chelmsford.
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