Napoleon BonaparteAbbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
History
Napoleon Bonaparte
Abbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
Emperors -- France -- Biography; Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821
Let every publicity be given to what is done."
"Fouche," said Napoleon, is a miscreant of all colors, a terrorist,
and one who took an active part in many bloody scenes of the
Revolution. He is a man who can worm all your secrets out of you,
with an air of calmness and unconcern. He is very rich; but his
riches have been badly acquired. He never was my confidant. Never
did he approach me without bending to the ground. But I never had
any esteem for him. I employed him merely as an instrument."
The Council of Five Hundred, in great confusion and bewilderment,
assembled at eleven o'clock. Lucien immediately communicated the
degree transferring their session to St. Cloud. This cut off all
debate. The decree was perfectly legal. There could therefore be no
legal pretext for opposition. Napoleon, the idol of the army, had
the whole military power obedient to his nod. Therefore resistance
of any kind was worse than folly. The deed was adroitly done. At
eleven o'clock the day's work was accomplished. There was no longer
a Directory. Napoleon was the appointed chief of the troops, and
they were filling the streets with enthusiastic shouts of "Live
Napoleon." The Council of Ancients were entirely at his disposal.
An a large party in the Council of Five Hundred were also wholly
subservient to his will. Napoleon, proud, silent, reserved reserved,
fully conscious of his own intellectual supremacy, and regarding
the generals, the statesmen, and the multitude around him, as
a man contemplates children, ascended the grand staircase of the
Tuileries as it were his hereditary home. Nearly all parties united
to sustain his triumph. Napoleon was a solider. The guns of Paris
joyfully thundered forth the victory of one who seemed the peculiar
favorite of the God of war. Napoleon was a scholar, stimulating
intellect to its mightiest achievements. The scholars of Paris,
gratefully united to weave a chaplet for the brow of their honored
associate and patron. Napoleon was, for those days of profligacy and
unbridled lust, a model of purity of morals, and of irreproachable
integrity. The proffered bribe of millions could not tempt him.
The dancing daughters of Herodias, with all their blandishments,
could not lure him from his life of Herculean toil and from his
majestic patriotism. The wine which glitters in the cup, never
vanquished him. At the shrine of no vice was he found a worshiper.
The purest and the best in France, disgusted with that gilded
corruption which had converted the palaces of the Bourbons into
harems of voluptuous sin, and still more deeply loathing that vulgar
and revolting vice, which had transformed Paris into a house of
infamy, enlisted all their sympathies in behalf of the exemplary
husband and the incorruptible patriot. Napoleon was one of the most
firm and unflinching friends of law and order. France was weary of
anarchy and was trembling under the apprehension that the gutters
of the guillotine were again to be clotted with blood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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