At St. Helena, when Napoleon had time to remember his early youth, he
said to Montholon:
“What recollections of childhood crowd upon my memory. I am carried back
to my first impressions of the life of man. It seems to me always, in
these moments of calm, that I should have been the happiest man in the
world with an income of twenty-five hundred dollars a year, living as the
father of a family with my wife and son, in our old home at Ajaccio.… I
still remember with emotion the minute details of a journey in which I
accompanied Paoli. More than five hundred of us, young persons of the
first families in the island, formed his body-guard. I felt proud of
walking by his side, and he appeared to take pleasure in pointing out to
me the passes of our mountains which had been witnesses of the heroic
struggle of our countrymen for independence. The impressions made upon me
still vibrate in my heart.… Religion is the dominion of the soul. It is
the hope of life, the anchor of safety, the deliverance from evil. What
a service has Christianity rendered to humanity! What a power would it
still have did its ministers comprehend their mission!”
* * * * *
Napoleon’s hand-writing was of a most unintelligible character. “Do you
write orthographically?” he asked his amanuensis one day at St. Helena.
“A man occupied with public business can not attend to orthography. His
ideas must flow faster than his hand can trace. He has only time to
place his points. He must compress words into letters, and phrases into
words, and let the scribes make it out afterward.”
* * * * *
“The rapid succession of your victories,” said Las Cases to Napoleon,
“must have been a source of great delight to you.” “By no means,”
Napoleon replied; “those who think so know nothing of the peril of our
situation. The victory of to-day was instantly forgotten in preparation
for the battle which was to be fought on the morrow. The aspect of danger
was continually before me. I enjoyed not one moment of repose.”
* * * * *
“Tents,” said Napoleon, “are unhealthy; it is much better for the soldier
to bivouac in the open air, for then he can build a fire and sleep with
warm feet. Tents are necessary only for the general officers, who are
obliged to read and consult their maps.”
* * * * *
“My extreme youth when I took command of the army of Italy,” Napoleon
remarked, “made it necessary for me to evince great reserve of manner,
and the utmost severity of morals. This was indispensable to enable me
to sustain authority over men so greatly superior in age and experience.
I pursued a line of conduct in the highest degree irreproachable and
exemplary. In spotless morality I was a Cato, and must have appeared such
to all. I was a philosopher and a sage. My supremacy could be retained
only by proving myself a better man than any other in the army. Had I
yielded to human weaknesses I should have lost my power.”
* * * * *
Napoleon sent the celebrated picture of St. Jerome from the Duke of
Parma’s gallery to the Museum at Paris. The duke, to save his work of
art, offered Napoleon two hundred thousand dollars, which the conqueror
refused to take, saying: “The sum which he offers will be soon spent; but
the possession of such a masterpiece at Paris will adorn that capital for
ages, and give birth to similar exertions of genius.”
* * * * *
“Different matters are arranged in my head,” said Napoleon, “as in
drawers. I open one drawer and close another as I wish. I have never been
kept awake by an involuntary pre-occupation of the mind. If I desire
repose I shut up all the drawers, and sleep. I have always slept when I
wanted rest, and almost always at will.”
* * * * *
While at Milan, Napoleon had just mounted his horse one morning, when
a dragoon, bearing important dispatches, presented himself before him.
Napoleon gave a verbal answer and ordered the courier to take it back
with all speed.
“I have no horse,” the man answered. “I rode mine so hard that it fell
dead at your palace gates.”
Napoleon alighted. “Take mine,” he said.
The man hesitated.
“You think him too magnificently caparisoned and too fine an animal,”
said Napoleon. “Nothing is too good for a French soldier.”
* * * * *
“Pavia,” said Napoleon, “is the only place I ever gave up to pillage. I
promised that the soldiers should have it at their mercy for twenty-four
hours; but after three hours I could bear such scenes of outrage no
longer, and put an end to them. Policy and morality are equally opposed
to the system. Nothing is so certain to disorganize and completely ruin
an army.”
* * * * *
“I have,” said Napoleon, “a taste for founding, not for possessing. My
riches consist in glory and celebrity. The Simplon and the Louvre were,
in the eyes of the people and of foreigners, more my property than any
private domains could possibly have been.”
* * * * *
To General Clark, on the death of his nephew, at Arcola, Napoleon wrote:
“Your nephew, Elliott, has been slain upon the battlefield. That young
man has several times marched at the head of our columns. He has died
gloriously, and in the face of the enemy. He did not have a moment’s
suffering. Where is the _reasonable man_ who would not envy such a death?
Where is he who, in the vicissitudes of life would not give himself up to
leave in this manner a world so often ungrateful?”
* * * * *
Napoleon had no tendencies to gallantry. Madame de Stäel once said to
him: “It is reported that you are not very partial to the ladies.” “I am
very fond of my wife, Madame,” was the laconic reply.
* * * * *
“The English,” said Napoleon, “appear to prefer the bottle to the society
of their ladies; as is exemplified by dismissing the ladies from the
table and remaining for hours to drink and intoxicate themselves. If
I were in England I should decidedly leave the table with the ladies.
If the object is to talk instead of to drink, why banish them. Surely
conversation is never so lively nor so witty as when ladies take a part
in it. Were I an Englishwoman I should feel very discontented at being
turned out by the men to wait for two or three hours while they were
drinking. In France, society is nothing unless ladies are present. They
are the life of conversation.”
* * * * *
A lady of rank once said to him, “What is life worth if one cannot be
General Bonaparte?” Napoleon answered her wisely: “Madame! one may be a
dutiful wife and the good mother of a family.”
* * * * *
Traveling through Switzerland, Napoleon was greeted with such enthusiasm
that Bourrienne said to him, “It must be delightful to be greeted with
such demonstrations of enthusiastic admiration.” “Bah,” replied Napoleon;
“this same unthinking crowd under a slight change of circumstances would
follow me just as eagerly to the scaffold.”
* * * * *
Speaking of the Theophilanthropists, Napoleon said, “They can accomplish
nothing; they are merely actors.” “What!” was the reply; “do you thus
stigmatize those whose tenets inculcate universal benevolence and the
moral virtues?” “All moral systems are fine,” rejoined Napoleon. “The
Gospel alone has shown a full and complete assemblage of the principles
of morality, stripped of all absurdity. It is not made up, like your
creed, of a few commonplace sentences put into bad verse. Do you wish to
find out the really sublime? Repeat the Lord’s Prayer. Such enthusiasts
are only to be met with the weapons of ridicule; all their efforts will
prove ineffectual.”