When I shall have passed away, there will be comments enough on my actions to exalt me if I succeed, to disparage me if I fail. Paradoxes are already rife--they are never wanting in France--but I shall still them to silence while I live; and when I am gone--no matter. My object is to succeed; for that I have some capacity. My Iliad I compose in action; every day adds an episode." As he spoke these latter words he rose from his seat with a light elastic movement, and seemed altogether another person. When relieved from the turmoil of passion, he became gay, cheerful, and at the same time unaffected and natural. He made no effort to pose, nor did he seek to exalt and idealize himself, as he did afterward in the conversations at St. Helena, to meet some philosophic conception, or to fill up the portrait of himself which he desired to bequeath to posterity. He was far from any thing of this sort: in simple reality, he was himself, as it were, turned inside out. After a slight pause he advanced a step or two toward the Pope, who had not moved, and smiling, with an expression half-serious, half-ironical, proceeded in a new vein, in which were blended something of the elevated and the petty, of the pompous and the trivial, as was often his usage--all the time speaking with the volubility so often exhibited by this most versatile genius. "Birth is every thing: those who appear on this world's stage poor and friendless, have a desperate struggle to maintain. According to the quality of their minds they turn to action or to self-destruction. When they have resolution to set to work, as I have done, they often play the winning game. A man must live; he must conquer a position, and make for himself an abiding-place. I have made mine as a cannon-ball does; so much the worse for those who stood in my way. Some are content with little, others never have enough: men eat according to their appetites, and I have a large one. Mark me, when I was at Toulon, I had not the price of a pair of epaulets; but instead of them I had on my shoulders my mother, and I know not how many brothers. All these are now tolerably well provided for; and as to Josephine, who, it was said, married me from pity, we are about to crown her in the very teeth of Raguedeau, her notary, who once told her that I had lost my commission and my sword, and was not worth a ducat; and faith he was not far wrong! But now, what is it that rises up in perspective before me? An imperial mantle and a crown. To me what are such things? a costume, a mere actor's costume. I shall wear them for the occasion, that's enough: then resuming my military frock, I'll get on horseback. On horseback said I?--yes, and perhaps for life; but scarcely shall I have taken up my new position when I shall run the risk of being pushed off my pedestal. Is that a state to be envied? There are but two classes of men--those who have something, and those who have nothing. The first take their rest, the others remain awake.