The Road to Glory by E. Alexander Powell — Read

This story properly begins in an emperor's bathtub. The bathtub was in the Palace of the Tuileries, and, immersed to the chin in its cologne-scented water, was Napoleon. The nineteenth century was but a three-year-old; the month was April, and the trees in the Tuileries Garden were just bursting into bud; and the First Consul -- he made himself Emperor a few weeks later -- was taking his Sunday-morning bath. There was a scratch at the door -- scratching having been substituted for knocking in the palace after the Egyptian campaign -- and the Mameluke body-guard ushered into the bathroom Napoleon's brothers Joseph and Lucien. How the conversation began between this remarkable trio of Corsicans is of small consequence. It is enough to know that Napoleon dumfounded his brothers by the blunt announcement that he had determined to sell the great colony of Louisiana -- all that remained to France of her North American empire -- to the United States. He made this astounding announcement, as Joseph wrote afterward, "with as little ceremony as our dear father would have shown in selling a vineyard. " Incensed at Napoleon's cool assumption that the great overseas possession was his to dispose of as he saw fit, Joseph, his hot Corsican blood getting the better of his discretion, leaned over the tub and shook his clinched fist in the face of his august brother.

"What you propose is unconstitutional! " he cried. "If you attempt to carry it out I swear that I will be the first to oppose you!"