[Footnote 1228: "Madame de Rémusat," I., 105.--Never was there an abler and more persevering sophist, more persuasive, more eloquent, in order to make it appear that he was right. Hence his dictations at St. Helena; his proclamations, messages, and diplomatic correspondence; his ascendancy in talking as great as through his arms, over his subject and over his adversaries; also his posthumous ascendancy over posterity. He is as great a lawyer as he is a captain and administrator. The peculiarity of this disposition is never submitting to truth, but always to speak or write with reference to an audience, to plead a cause. Through this talent one creates phantoms which dupe the audience; on the other hand, as the author himself forms part of the audience, he ends in not along leading others into error but likewise himself, which is the case with Napoleon.] [Footnote 1229: Yung, II., 111. (Report by Volney, Corsican commissioner, 1791.--II., 287.) (Mémorial, giving a true account of the political and military state of Corsica in December, 1790.)--II., 270. (Dispatch of the representative Lacombe Saint-Michel, Sept. 10, 1793.)--Miot de Melito I.,131, and following pages. (He is peace commissioner in Corsica in 1797 and 1801.)] [Footnote 1230: Miot de Melito, II., 2. "The partisans of the First consul's family... regarded me simply as the instrument of their passions, of use only to rid them of their enemies, so as to center all favors on their protégés."] [Footnote 1231: Yung., I., 220. (Manifest of October--31, 1789.)--I., 265. (Loan on the seminary funds obtained by force, June 23, 1790.)--I., 267, 269. (Arrest of M. de la Jaille and other officers; plan for taking the citadel of Ajaccio.)--II., 115. (letter to Paoli, February 17, 1792.) "Laws are like the statues of certain divinities--veiled on certain occasions."--II., 125. (Election of Bonaparte as lieutenant-colonel of a battalion of volunteers, April 1, 1792.) The evening before he had Murati, one of the three departmental commissioners, carried off by an armed band from the house of the Peraldi, his adversaries, where he lodged. Murati, seized unawares, is brought back by force and locked up in Bonaparte's house, who gravely says to him "I wanted you to be free, entirely at liberty; you were not so with the Peraldi."--His Corsican biographer (Nasica, "Mémoires sur la jeunesse et l'enfance de Napoléon,") considers this a very praiseworthy action] [Footnote 1232: Cf. on this point, the Memoirs of Marshal Marmont, I., 180, 196; the Memoirs of Stendhal, on Napoleon; the Report of d'Antraigues (Yung, III., 170, 171); the "Mercure Britannique" of Mallet-Dupan, and the first chapter of "La Chartreuse de Parme," by Stendhal.] [Footnote 1233: "Correspondance de Napoléon," I. (Letter of Napoleon to the Directory, April 26, 1796.)--Proclamation of the same date: "You have made forced marches barefoot, bivouacked without brandy, and often without bread."]