PREFIXED to Madame de Rémusat’s “Memoirs” is one of the most searching studies of the character of Napoleon in print. She had a keenly critical intellect and she probes mercilessly the vital weaknesses of his character. Her husband, who was Napoleon’s chamberlain, became disaffected, and after the Restoration took office under the Bourbons. Born in 1780, and married to the Comte de Rémusat when very young, Madame de Rémusat became one of Josephine’s court ladies and was greatly admired for her talents. The extent of her abilities was not suspected, however, until after her death (1821), when one of her essays was “crowned” by the French Academy. More than fifty years later (1879) her son published her “Memoirs,” which at once became famous. She was a most extraordinary woman in many respects, but perhaps most remarkable for her lack of reserve in estimating character and in recording incident and anecdote illustrating it.