



Produced by David Starner, Bill Walker and PG Distributed Proofreaders




FOLK-TALES OF NAPOLEON

NAPOLEONDER
  From the Russian

THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE
  From the French of Honore de Balzac


Translated With Introduction By
GEORGE KENNAN


1902


CONTENTS

NAPOLEONDER
THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE




INTRODUCTION

Most of the literature that has its origin in the life and career of a
great man may be grouped and classified under two heads: history and
biography. The part that relates to the man's actions, and to the
influence that such actions have had in shaping the destinies of peoples
and states, belongs in the one class; while the part that derives its
interest mainly from the man's personality, and deals chiefly with the
mental and moral characteristics of which his actions were the outcome,
goes properly into the other. The value of the literature included in
these two classes depends almost wholly upon truth; that is, upon the
precise correspondence of the statements mad