seven in the morning
Then he would sketch out the plan for some building to be erected , or dictate some one of those vast projects which have amazed -- let us say rather , terrified the world . At five o'clock he dined ; after dinner the First Consul ascended to Josephine 's apartments , where he usually received the visits of the ministers , and particularly that of the minister of foreign affairs , M. de Talleyrand . At midnight , sometimes earlier , but never later , he gave the signal for retiring by saying , brusquely : `` Let us go to bed . '' The next day , at seven in the morning , the same life began over again , varied only by unforeseen incidents . After these details of the personal habits of the great genius we are trying to depict under his first aspect , his personal portrait ought , we think , to come . Bonaparte , First Consul , has left fewer indications of his personal appearance than Napoleon , Emperor . Now , as nothing less resembles the Emperor of 1812 than the First Consul of 1800 ; let us endeavor , if possible , to sketch with a pen those features which the brush has never fully portrayed , that countenance which neither bronze nor marble has been able to render .