Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXIII.—April, 1852.—Vol. IV.: NoneVarious
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXIII.—April, 1852.—Vol. IV.: None
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
loved to anticipate; for he would surely guide them to wealth, and fame,
and fortune. He contemplated them, not as equals and confiding friends,
but as efficient and valuable instruments for the accomplishment of his
purposes. Murat was to Napoleon a body of ten thousand horse-men, ever
ready for a resistless charge. Lannes was a phalanx of infantry,
bristling with bayonets, which neither artillery nor cavalry could
batter down or break. Augereau was an armed column of invincible troops,
black, dense, massy, impetuous, resistless, moving with gigantic tread
wherever the finger of the conqueror pointed. These were but the members
of Napoleon's body, the limbs obedient to the mighty soul which swayed
them. They were not the companions of his thoughts, they were only the
servants of his will. The number to be found with whom the soul of
Napoleon could dwell in sympathetic friendship was few--very few.
Napoleon had formed a very low estimate of human nature, and
consequently made great allowance for the infirmities incident to
humanity. Bourrienne reports him as saying, "Friendship is but a name. I
love no one; no, not even my brothers. Joseph perhaps a little. And if I
do love him, it is from habit, and because he is my elder. Duroc! Ah,
yes! I love him too. But why? His character pleases me. He is cold,
reserved, and resolute, and I really believe that he never shed a tear.
As to myself, I know well that I have not one true friend. As long as I
continue what I am, I may have as many pretended friends as I please. We
must leave sensibility to the women. It is their business. Men should be
firm in heart and in purpose, or they should have nothing to do with war
or government. I am not amiable. No; I am not amiable I never have been.
But I am just."
In another mood of mind, more tender, more subdued, he remarked, at St.
Helena, in reply to Las Casas, who with great severity was condemning
those who abandoned Napoleon in his hour of adversity: "You are not
acquainted with men. They are difficult to comprehend if one wishes to
be strictly just. Can they understand or explain even their own
characters? Almost all those who abandoned me would, had I continued to
be prosperous, never perhaps have dreamed of their own defection. There
are vices and virtues which depend upon circumstances. Our last trials
were beyond all human strength! Besides I was forsaken rather than
betrayed; there was more of weakness than of perfidy around me. _It was
the denial of St. Peter._ Tears and penitence are probably at hand, And
where will you find in the page of history any one possessing a greater
number of friends and partisans? Who was ever more popular and more
beloved? Who was ever more ardently and deeply regretted? Here, from
this very rock, on viewing the present disorders in France, who would
not be tempted to say that I still reign there? No; human nature might
have appeared in a more odious light."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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