Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/96

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Napoleon.

his mind. His legs were well-shaped, his foot was small and well-formed. His hand, and he was rather proud of it, was delicate and plump, with tapering fingers. His forehead was high and broad, his eyes gray, penetrating, and wonderfully alert; his nose was straight and well-shaped. His teeth were fairly good, the mouth perfectly modelled, the upper lip slightly drawn down toward the corner of the mouth, and the chin slightly prominent. His skin was smooth, and his complexion pale, but of a pallor which denoted a good circulation of the blood. His very fine chestnut hair, which, until the time of the expedition to Egypt, he had worn long, cut square, and covering his ears, was clipped short. The hair was thin on the upper part of the head, and left bare his forehead, the seat of such lofty thoughts. The shape of his face and the ensemble of his features were remarkably regular. In one word, his head and his bust were in no way inferior in nobility and dignity to the most beautiful bust which antiquity has bequeathed to us. Of this portrait, which in its principal features underwent little alteration in the last years of his reign, I will add some particulars furnished by my long intimacy with him. When excited by any violent passion his face assumed an even terrible expression. A sort of rotary movement very visibly produced itself on his forehead and between his eyebrows; his eyes