The remarkable career of Madame Bonaparte, which ended at Baltimore, in April of this year, possessed features which make it as interesting as a romance. Few of the present generation, when they read in the daily papers the notice of the death, at the great age of ninety-four, of this brilliant, fascinating, and once dazzlingly beautiful woman, realized what a long and varied series of events had been comprised in her life. The account of Elizabeth Patterson's marriage, at eighteen, to Jerome Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon; of her desertion by her husband at Napoleon's order, and of the ambitious woman's long and determined struggle for her rights, make up a sufficiently eventful story.
But the wonderfully full and varied character of Madame Bonaparte's life is only fully appreciated when it is remembered that all this had happened before she was thirty; that after the Restoration she was still to spend years of brilliant social success, in different parts of Europe, among the most prominent people of the time.
A great number of her letters, covering portions of her life as fully as a diary, have come into the hands of Mr. Eugene L. Didier, who has been for several years a special student of everything bearing upon Madame Bonaparte's career, and has had every advantage for making a thorough biographical study. In her correspondence her opinions are expressed with a peculiar candor; and the cynical frankness with which she avows her ambitions and motives, the pungency of her comments upon the people about her, and the accuracy of her judgments, as they are found in these pages, show clearly the sharp outlines of her singular character.
The publishers have had the privilege of consulting Mr. Charles Bonaparte, of Baltimore, in regard to the publication of the volume, and, while he is in no sense responsible for any portion of the book, they are indebted to him for very valuable suggestions and criticisms.
The biography will be illustrated with a copy of Gilbert Stuart's beautiful portrait of Madame Bonaparte at the time of her marriage, giving three different views of the face on the same canvas.
∵ The above book for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post or express charges paid, upon receipt of price, by the publishers,
