A little while ago I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon--a
magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity--and
gazed upon the sarcophagus of black Egyptian marble, where rest at last
the ashes of the restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought
about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world. I saw him
walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide--I saw him
at Toulon--I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris--I saw
him at the head of the army of Italy--I saw him crossing the bridge of
Lodi with the tri-color in his hand--I saw him in Egypt in the shadows
of the pyramids--I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of
France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo--at Ulm and
Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the
cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like Winter's withered
leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster--driven by a million
bayonets back upon Paris--clutched like a wild beast--banished to Elba.
I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. I saw
him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where chance and fate combined
to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him at St. Helena,
with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn
sea. I thought of the orphans and widows he had made--of the tears that
had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him,
pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would
rather have been a French peasant, and worn wooden shoes. I would rather
have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes
growing purple in the kisses of the Autumn sun. I would rather have been
that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day
died out of the sky--with my children upon my knees and their arms about
me; I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless
silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial
impersonation of force and murder known as Napoleon the Great. And so I
would, ten thousand times.