Excerpt from Torchlight In offering her work to the public, partly in hor of Napoleon's centenary, May, 1921, the author begs to say that she has t only relied on the statistical statements taken from the vast bulk of Napoleonic literature, but also on the personal point of view, which, to an imaginative mind, is of greater importance. She has called her work Torchlight. It may t be a good title - t that titles matter - but surely it is symbolic of her attitude? Without some kind of light we poor human beings are in a sad way, and an artist is frankly lost. The human mind resembles a torch - we like the idea of a torch w burning sullenly, w bursting into a flame of purest light! In this particular volume Napoleon is shown in the first stage of his wonderful career against a more or less detailed background of the French Revolution, which, as it were, ploughs a passage for his advance. Even he would have failed in a world of peace. The book is inscribed to the author's twin sister, Sylvia, and her three little daughters, Nadine, Pamela, and Flora McDougall, who have taken flattering interest in the work, most of it written under the ancient roofs of Provender (their home) in the Black Prince's own chamber, so called since that valiant knight (1346) occupied it, on his way to join his father's standard in France. 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 techlogy 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.