But the man never lived who knew better how to talk, how to write, how to say what he meant. He could address mobs, committees, state councils, senates, armies, peoples, and kings. Who that ever lived excelled him in speaking to soldiers? Verily the lines are yet hot in his proclamations, and he who reads them even now will feel the magnetic thrill. How they must have inspired the soldiers _then_! His speeches to the councils and the Senate were models in their way; his state papers have not been excelled; his diplomatic correspondence measures up the loftiest standards. In truth, his language varied with the subject and the occasion. He could be as elegantly gracious as any Bourbon, if the occasion required it. If it became needful to call a spade a spade, he could do it, and with a vim which left the ears tingling. In all of his talk, however, there was character, individuality, and greatness. Wrong he might often be, weak never. Whatever view he expressed, in youth or age, was stated clearly, and with strength. Even when sifted through the recollections of others, his sayings stand out as incomparably finer than those of any talker of that age. Compare the few little jests and epigrams of Talleyrand, for instance, with the numberless comments of Napoleon on men and things, on matters social, political, industrial, financial, military, and religious. It is like a comparison between a few lamps in a hallway and the myriad stars of the firmament. On every topic he discussed he said the best things that can be said on that side; and there is no subject connected with human affairs in a state that he has not touched. Upon every subject he had a word which shot to the core of the matter. His talent for throwing into one dazzling sentence the pith of a long discussion was unexcelled. Some of the best sayings attributed to Talleyrand were really the sayings of Napoleon. It often happened that these terse expressions were coarse, the language of men on the street. At such sayings the “Lady Clara” tribe of men arched their eyebrows in delicate protest, and said to one another, “This Bonaparte is no gentleman; he was not so well brought up as we were,--we, the Talleyrands, Metternichs, and Whitworths!” In one humor, Napoleon was brusque, coarse, overbearing, and pitiless; in another he was caressing, elegantly dignified, imperially generous and gracious. Between these extremes ran the current of his life: hence the varied impressions he made upon others. Charles Fox and Lord Holland knew him personally, and they risked political and social influence in England by defending him from the abuse which had become the fashion there. Almost without exception the men who came into personal relations with him loved him. The rare exceptions are such people as Bourrienne and Rémusat, whom Napoleon had to rebuke for ways that were crooked. Even to his valets he was a hero.