When Napoleon was about fourteen, he was conversing with a lady about
Marshal Turenne, and extolling him to the skies.
“Yes, my friend,” she answered, “he was a great man; but I should like
him better if he had not burnt the Palatinate.”
“What does that matter,” he replied briskly, “if the burning was
necessary to the success of his plans?”
* * * * *
Napoleon’s German master, a heavy and phlegmatic man, who thought the
study of German the only one necessary to a man’s success in life,
finding Napoleon absent from his class one day, asked where he was. He
was told he was undergoing his examination for the artillery.
“Does he know anything then?” he asked ironically.
“Why, sir, he is the best mathematician in the school.”
“Well,” was his sage remark, “I have always heard say, and I always
thought, that mathematics was a study only suitable to fools.”
“It would be satisfactory to know,” Napoleon said twenty years after,
“if my professor lived long enough to enjoy his discernment.”
* * * * *
In 1782, at one of the holiday school fêtes at Brienne, to which all
the inhabitants of the place were invited, guards were established to
preserve order. The dignities of officer and subaltern were conferred
only on the most distinguished. Bonaparte was one of these on a certain
occasion, when “The Death of Cæsar” was to be performed.
A janitor’s wife who was perfectly well known presented herself for
admission without a ticket. She made a clamor, and insisted upon
being let in, and the sergeant reported her to Napoleon, who, in an
imperative tone, exclaimed, “Let that woman be removed, who brings into
this place the license of a camp.”
* * * * *
Bonaparte was confirmed at the military school at Paris. At the name of
Napoleon, the archbishop who confirmed him expressed his astonishment,
saying that he did not know this saint, that he was not in the
calendar, etc. The child answered unhesitatingly, “That that was no
reason, for there were a crowd of saints in Paradise, and only 365 days
in the year.”
* * * * *
Dining one day with one of the professors at Brienne, the professor
knowing his young pupil’s admiration for Paoli, spoke disrespectfully
of the general to tease the boy.
Napoleon was energetic in his defense. “Paoli, sir,” said he, “was a
great man! he loved his country; and I shall never forgive my father
for consenting to the union of Corsica with France.”
* * * * *
One evening in the midst of the Reign of Terror, on returning from a
walk through the streets of Paris, a lady asked him:
“How do you like the new Constitution?”
He replied hesitatingly: “Why, it is good in one sense, certainly;
but all that is connected with carnage is bad;” and then he exclaimed
in an outburst of undisguised feeling: “No! no! no! down with this
constitution; I do not like it.”
* * * * *
1794. During the siege of Toulon, one of the agents of the convention
ventured to criticise the position of a gun which Napoleon was
superintending. “Do you,” he tartly replied, “attend to your duty as
national commissioners, and I will be answerable for mine with my head.”
* * * * *
An officer, entering Napoleon’s room, found, much to his astonishment,
Napoleon dressed and studying.
“What!” exclaimed his friend, “are you not in bed yet?”
“In bed!” replied Napoleon, “I have finished my sleep and already
risen.”
“What, so early?” the other replied.
“Yes,” continued Napoleon, “so early. Two or three hours of sleep are
enough for any man.”
* * * * *
When Barras introduced Napoleon to the convention as a fit man to be
entrusted with the command, the President asked, “Are you willing to
undertake the defense of the convention?”
“Yes,” was the reply.
After a time the President continued: “Are you aware of the magnitude
of the undertaking?”
“Perfectly,” replied Napoleon, fixing his eyes upon the questioner;
“and I am in the habit of accomplishing that which I undertake.”
* * * * *
“How could you,” a lady asked about this time, “fire thus mercilessly
upon your countrymen?”
“A soldier,” he replied calmly, “is only a machine to obey orders. This
is my seal which I have impressed upon Paris.”
* * * * *
Napoleon’s apt replies often excited good humor in a crowd. A large
and brawny fishwoman once was haranguing the mob, and telling them not
to disperse. She finished by exclaiming, “Never mind those coxcombs
with epaulets on their shoulders; they care not if we poor people all
starve, if they but feed well and grow fat.”
Napoleon, who was as thin as a shadow, turned to her and said, “Look at
me, my good woman, and tell me which of us two is the fatter.”
The fishfag was completely disconcerted, and the crowd dispersed.
* * * * *
1796. “Good God!” Napoleon said in Italy, while residing at Montebello,
“how rare men are. There are eighteen millions in Italy, and I have
with difficulty found two—Dandolo and Melzi.”
* * * * *
“Europe!” Napoleon exclaimed at Passeriano, “Europe is but a mole-hill;
there never have existed mighty empires, there never have occurred
great revolutions, save in the east, where lived six hundred millions
of men—the cradle of all religions, the birthplace of all metaphysics.”
* * * * *
One day Napoleon, conversing with Las Cases, asked him, “Were you a
gamester?”
“Alas, sire,” Las Cases replied, “I must confess that I was, but only
occasionally.”
“I am glad,” replied Napoleon, “that I knew nothing of it at the time.
You would have been ruined in my esteem. A gamester was sure to lose my
confidence. I placed no more trust in him.”
* * * * *
Some one read an account of the battle of Lodi, in which it was stated
that Napoleon crossed the bridge first, and that Lannes passed after
him.
“Before me! before me!” Napoleon exclaimed. “Lannes passed first, I
only followed him. I must correct that error on the spot.”