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
On the same day, and at nearly the same hour in which the fatal
bullet pierced the breast of Desaix, an assassin in Egypt plunged
a dagger into the bosom of Kleber. The spirits of these illustrious
men, these blood-stained warriors, thus unexpectedly met in the
spirit-land. There they wander now. How impenetrable the vail which
shuts their destiny from our view. The soul longs for clearer vision
of that far-distant world, people by the innumerable host of the
mighty dead. There Napoleon now dwells. Does he retain his intellectual
supremacy? Do his generals gather around him with love and homage!
Has his pensive spirit sunk down into gloom and despair, or has
it soared into cloudless regions of purity and peace! The mystery
of death' Death alone can solve it. Christianity, with its lofty
revealings, sheds but dim twilight upon the world off departed
spirits. At St. Helena Napoleon said, "Of all the general I ever had
under my command Desaix and Kleber possessed the greatest talent.
In particular Desaix, as Kleber loved glory only as the means of
acquiring wealth and pleasure. Desaix loved glory for itself, and
despised every other consideration. To him riches and pleasure were
of no value, nor did he ever give them a moment's thought. He was
a little black-looking man, about an inch shorter than myself,
always badly dressed, sometimes even ragged, and despising alike
comfort and convenience. Enveloped in a cloak, Desaix would throw
himself under a gun and sleep as contentedly as if reposing in a
palace. Luxury had for him no charms. Frank and honest in all his
proceedings, he was denominated by the Arabs Sultan the Just. Nature
intended him to figure as a consummate general. Kleber and Desaix
were irreparable losses to France."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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