Napoleon had the news read aloud to him in the bath

Every morning, Napoleon Bonaparte followed the exact same ritual. He would submerge himself in a scalding hot bath for nearly two hours while his secretary sat on a small stool nearby. Until the water turned cold, the secretary read aloud morning newspapers, diplomatic dispatches, and Europe’s most critical news. For the emperor, this wasn’t an eccentric whim. It was a sophisticated time-management system.

Today, such luxury feels entirely out of reach. A personal assistant whose sole job is to read aloud articles and documents is a privilege reserved for the ultra-wealthy. Yet the core concept remains strikingly modern. While nearly everything has changed over the past two centuries, one human drive stays constant: the search for ways to consume information without putting life on pause.

We listen to music while driving, podcasts while running, and lectures during flights. The logical evolution was to have our written material read aloud. It’s not that visual reading has lost its value; it’s simply that finding an uninterrupted thirty minutes in a chaotic day has become a rare luxury.

The paradox of the 21st century is that information multiplies exponentially every single day. We bookmark articles, email links to ourselves, download books, and leave dozens of browser tabs permanently open. Our hard drives are cluttered with PDF reports, EPUB and MOBI files, notes, manuals, and case studies. We tell ourselves we’ll get to them eventually. But honestly? We rarely do.

The crisis is no longer about accessing information. It is about capturing time.

This is where truly great tools step in — they don’t just alter your habits, they redefine your relationship with time. Take Read It To Me, for example. This extension transforms virtually any text into high-quality audio. Instead of archiving a fascinating long-form piece for a “later” that never comes, you can simply activate it and go about your day.

With this approach, consuming text stops being a separate, stationary task and blends seamlessly into your daily flow. While brewing your morning coffee, commuting, walking the dog, exercising, or sorting through your inbox, the narrative moves with you.

The shift is most dramatic when dealing with a backlog of diverse formats. Heavy PDF documents, EPUB and MOBI books, long-form journalism, and work briefs — the very items that usually sit untouched for weeks — are suddenly unlocked. Instead of facing a daunting, static reading list, you reclaim moments that used to be completely wasted.

Interestingly, there is nothing inherently revolutionary about this concept. For centuries, communal listening was the norm. In medieval monasteries, one monk read aloud while the others worked with their hands. In nineteenth-century cigar factories, lecturers read books to craftsmen to keep them engaged during repetitive labor. Napoleon’s secretary was doing exactly what software does today.

The only difference is that now, you don’t need a royal payroll to afford it.

If Napoleon were alive in the 21st century, his morning routine would likely involve a smartphone running Read It To Me resting on the edge of the tub. The physical newspapers would be replaced by digital feeds, but the strategy would remain identical: maximizing every fleeting minute.

Some technologies aim to dazzle us with spectacle. Others quietly, almost invisibly, make daily life smoother. If you are looking for a free Speechify alternative, this tool fits firmly into the second category. It isn’t just a text utility — it’s a way to reclaim hours of your week without disrupting your lifestyle.

Ultimately, the most precious resource today isn’t money, or even information itself. It is attention. When technology allows us to absorb knowledge while our hands are busy and our eyes are focused on the road, our work, or the world around us, it fulfills its highest purpose — making time work for us, rather than against us.

Source: Bourrienne, Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, vol. 1 — his own account of the daily bath routine.

Questions people ask

Is the Napoleon bath story true?

His secretary Bourrienne describes reading him the newspapers and pamphlets of the day, mostly during the long morning bath and while he was being shaved. Napoleon also read a great deal himself and travelled with a library. Listening was not a substitute for reading — it was reading done at a moment when his hands were occupied.

Why would someone who reads well have text read aloud?

Because reading needs your eyes and listening does not. Anyone who cooks, drives, walks or works at a screen all day has hours when the eyes are taken and the attention is free.

Is listening as good as reading?

For everyday material the gap is small. Rogowsky, Calhoun and Tallal compared reading, listening and both together in 2016 and found no significant difference in comprehension between the groups.

How do I make my browser read a page aloud?

Add a text to speech extension, open the page, press play. Ours is here: read aloud in Chrome.

See also: Reading with ADHD: what actually helps.