It will do, it will do, my dear Tally! thy brain
Has my terrors remov’d, and “a man I’m again.”
I will rise with the dawn, for this scene to prepare;
Denon, with his crayons, so swift shall be there;
The Parisians the subject with rapture will trace
In my Nosegay[16]; I’ll hang it up full in their face.
I embrace thee, my dear little Tal! with delight;
_Ca ira! Ca ira_! Thy hand, and good night.
[The First Consul is said to have enjoyed half an hour’s uninterrupted
repose that night. What followed, the next day, all Europe knows, and
all Europe laughs at.]
[15] Black crape and the bolt of Heaven are the favourite rhetorical
figures of Napoleon the First.
[16] “Nosegay”—The anti-chamber of the Hall of the Arts in the Louvre,
in which there are many fine paintings, is called, by the Parisians,
Buonaparte’s Nosegay.