Self Help; with Illustrations of Conduct and PerseveranceSmiles, Samuel
Philosophy
Self Help; with Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance
Smiles, Samuel
Conduct of life
The French army was then lying encamped along the river Passarge with the
Russians before them, the Austrians on their right flank, and the
conquered Prussians in their rear. A long line of communications had to
be maintained with France, through a hostile country; but so carefully,
and with such foresight was this provided for, that it is said Napoleon
never missed a post. The movements of armies, the bringing up of
reinforcements from remote points in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany,
the opening of canals and the levelling of roads to enable the produce of
Poland and Prussia to be readily transported to his encampments, had his
unceasing attention, down to the minutest details. We find him directing
where horses were to be obtained, making arrangements for an adequate
supply of saddles, ordering shoes for the soldiers, and specifying the
number of rations of bread, biscuit, and spirits, that were to be brought
to camp, or stored in magazines for the use of the troops. At the same
time we find him writing to Paris giving directions for the
reorganization of the French College, devising a scheme of public
education, dictating bulletins and articles for the ‘Moniteur,’ revising
the details of the budgets, giving instructions to architects as to
alterations to be made at the Tuileries and the Church of the Madelaine,
throwing an occasional sarcasm at Madame de Stael and the Parisian
journals, interfering to put down a squabble at the Grand Opera, carrying
on a correspondence with the Sultan of Turkey and the Schah of Persia, so
that while his body was at Finkenstein, his mind seemed to be working at
a hundred different places in Paris, in Europe, and throughout the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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