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sending him to Paris at the very moment that he was putting the finishing hand to his treason and my ruin. I have been betrayed by Murat, whom I had raised from a soldier to a king, who was my sister's husband. I have been betrayed by Berthier, a mere goose, whom I had converted into a kind of eagle. I have been betrayed in the senate by those very men of the national party who owe every thing to me, and yet Macdonald, Valence, and Montesquiou (nobles or emigrants) were faithful; let them object to me the stupidity of Murat, I can oppose to it the judgment of Marmont, &c." In short, says Buonaparte, man is the animal of circumstances, there is no consistency either in his virtues or in his crimes. Las Cases, a prejudiced old Bourbonite emigrant, is his faithful follower in exile. Marmont, Augereau, Fouché, the creatures of the revolution and of his bounty, are traitors to his cause, and now the slaves of his enemies and of legitimacy. But the same inconsistency was developed in the revolutions of the Cæsars, and how admirably is it painted in one of the satires of Horace. Duroc was raised from a subaltern to the rank of duke, he was devotedly attached to Napoleon, who declared that "Duroc was the only man who shared his intimacy and possessed his confidence." The dying scene between this officer and Napoleon (Vol. I. Part II. page 146), bespeaks the kindness of Napoleon's heart. The first rise of Junot is told in an anecdote (Vol. I. Part I. page 155), full of spirit and highly characteristic of the times. Whilst the republican army was taking every opportunity of elevating to command every man from the ranks who might display genius and intrepidity, the Bourbons, in their army of emigrants, were continuing the old and absurd practice of promoting solely by gradations of pedigree. We find, however, that in spite of the number of great men that this free promotion brought forth, and in spite of the unexampled enthusiasm of the French people, the revolution was yet, at several epochs, within an ace of being suppressed, vide Vol. I. Part II. Eur. Mag. May, 1823.

page 161. The affairs of the republic were at the last gasp when Napoleon took the command of the army of Italy. The great talents of Massena and of Augereau had barely enabled them to maintain a defensive position near Savona and Genoa. Napoleon brought them no succours of men nor of money, and yet in a few months he was in possession of all the finest parts of Italy. The prodigious results of some of the Emperor's latter campaigns will secure them a preeminence in history, but in none of his military schemes did he evince such vast resources of intellect, such powers of calculation, such creative qualities of genius as in his first campaign in Italy. He took the cominand of his beaten and dispirited countrymen on the 29th of March 1796; they were couped up amongst barren rocks; in want of artillery, of cavalry, of clothes, food and money. So empty was the military chest that Napoleon could give to each Marshal only four louis to commence the campaign. A superior and victorious army was opposed to him, and it was impossible to force the Alps, for the King of Sardinia held all the fortified places commanding the roads and passes. The Alps gradually descend from their greatest elevation (St. Gothard) to the Mediterranean to the south-west of Genoa; Napoleon conceived the design of turning the Alps at their lowest and most accessible parts near Savona, and, by threatening the roads both to Turin and Milan, to separate the interests of the Austrian and Italian armies. He completely succeeded; and to quote his own address to the soldiers, "in 15 days he had gained six victories, taken 21 stand of colours, 55 pieces of cannon, several fortresses, and conquered the richest parts of Piedmont; made 15,000 prisoners, and had killed and wounded 10,000 of the enemy." had the genius of one man, as if by magic, in the space of 15 days overcome all the barriers of the Alps, and had transported his army from wretchedness and despair to the height of glory, and to the possession of the most luxurious country in the world; effects unexampled in military history. So thorough

G

Thus

was his contempt of money that he
resisted the offers of immense trea-
sures made to him by the Italians;
and after his conquest of this rich
country, and transmitting to the
national treasury 50,000,000 of
francs, he returned to France pos-
sessed of only 300,000 francs, or
about 12,000/. sterling. These im-
portant events are admirably told
in about 30 pages
volume (Part 1), we should sup-
of the first
pose by Napoleon himself, for they
are told in the very perfection of
style, that is to say, a style that
comprises the greatest possible num-
ber of facts in the fewest possible
words.

We are obliged, by the irregularity and want of classification in the Count's works, to be discursive in the nature of our remarks, and our transition must be from the bella! horrida bella! to the amusing and instructive remarks made by the Emperor upon the literary works that formed the solace of the hours of his captivity.

We have heard of Madame de Stael's ridiculous offer of marying Mr. Gibbon, and of her numberless other extravagancies. A very amusing anecdote is told of her by the Emperor (Vol. I. Part II. page 131). Attracted by the young general's renown the lady had written to him" long and numerous epistles," some of them, we imagine, not calculated to be very acceptable to Josephine; she had at length intruded her acquaintance on Napoleon to an inconvenient degree; and on one of her visits, wishing to get rid of her, Napoleon sent her word that he was scarcely dressed, on which the lady promptly and earnestly replied, that it was of no consequence, for "that genius was of no sex." The Emperor's great and favourite author was Corneille. Speaking upon the subject of ancient and modern dramas, he exclaimed with enthusiasm, Tragedy fires the soul, elevates the heart, and is calculated to generate heroes. Considered under this point of view, perhaps France owes to Corneille a part of her great actions, and, gentlemen, had he lived in my time I would have made him a Prince." But Corneille lived under Louis XIV. poor and neglected. The Emperor

He

admired Racine, but in a less degree. He seems not to have often Crebillon; his opinion of Voltaire, resorted to Moliere, and never to he pronounced him " full of bombast as a dramatist, was very humble: and trick, always incorrect, unacquainted either with men or things, sion." The fact is, that Voltaire's with truth, or the sublimity of pas dibly numerous and diversified, that literary productions are so increhis equalling Corneille as a dramatist was not to be expected, but the sentence passed on his dramas are so unreasonably severe, that we are inclined to think that the Count opinions with precision. The Emhas scarcely given us the Emperor's quently expatiated on "the force of peror admired Rousseau, and frehis arguments, and the elegance of his style and expressions." read the Nouvelle Heloïse for two hours together, and observed, that "Jean Jacques has overcharged his subject; he has painted madpleasure, not of misery. ness; love should be a source of this work is not without fire, it Really moves, it rouses the feelings." The Emperor thought very contemptibly continuation of his history by Creof Rollin, and still more so of the ver; he expressed a great contempt for all the French historians, "Vel words, and poor in meaning; his conly," said the Emperor, " is rich in tinuators are still worse: our history should either be in four or five volumes, or in a hundred." Berridicule with the Emperor. Reading nadin de St. Pierre was an object of Madame de Sevigne's celebrated account of the death of Turenne, served, with respect to the latter, and of the trial of Fouquet, he obthat Madame de Sevigne seemed to earnestness and tenderness for mere evince too much warmth, too much friendship." He was of opinion that our youth is too much spent in studying the classics. Napoleon's views of French literature were precisely in unison with those which are entertained on the subject by of every other country, except the critics of this, and, we believe, France herself. He thought it declamatory and diffuse. One day he superfluous passages from Vertot, amused himself by striking out the

and after the erasures the work appeared much more energetic and animated, on which the Emperor observed, "It would certainly be a most valuable and successful labour, if any man of taste and discernment would devote his time to reducing the principal works in our language in this manner, I know nobody but Montesquiou who would escape these curtailments." Napoleon seems to have had a sound judgment with an excellent taste in literature; he appears to have had the tact of almost intuitively fathoming an author's resources and depth of intellect, and of rapidly comprehending his design, his method, his style, and the value of his reflections; and of pointing out where any of these are defective, and how they might have been improved. His opinions upon points of ancient history appear to us to be extremely rational. He doubted most of their assertions, and positively disbelieved their accounts of the numbers of their armies. He credited the statements relative to the immense armies of Gengiskan and Tamerlane, because they were followed by gregarious nations, who, on their part, were joined to other wandering tribes as they advanced, "and it is not impossible," observed the Emperor, "that this may, one day, be the case in Europe. The revolution produced by the Huns, the cause of which is unknown because the tract is lost in the desert, may at a future period be renewed." This is clearly an allusion to Russia, and it is evident from numerous observations made by the Emperor, that it was his firm conviction that southern and western Europe would, at no distant period, be over-run by Asiatic hordes, under the influence of Russia. For our parts we cannot conceive the possibility of such an event. The modern arts of fortification, of gunnery, and of field tactics, give civilized nations a superiority over barbarians, infinitely greater than what was derived by the ancient Romans from their com

paratively impotent missiles, and imperfect discipline and manoeuvres. Added to which, the denser state of modern population, and the immense armies, which societies can now support by the improvements

in agriculture and in the modes of manufactures, would enable any of the leading nations of modern Europe to present a force, on any point of attack, equally numerous with that which gregarious nations could assemble for the purposes of invasion. But what is the efficiency of the troops of the demi-civilized nations of Asia and Africa? Napoleon, before the frost at Moscow, found the Cossacs beneath contempt as a military force; nor did he find the Russian armies so difficult to defeat as those of Prussia, Austria, or England. How easily he defeated the Arabians and Mamelukes of Egypt. But there is one unanswerable objection to all such calculations respecting the subjugation of western Europe by Russia: we mean to say, that the boundless extent of the Russian Empire, with the vast difference in the opinions, the manners, the religions, and interests of her northern and southern population, are unquestionably seeds of the ultimate dissolution of her power, and of her dominions being divided into separate states at some future period. So that an internal war, in the badly amalgamated parts of the Russian Empire, is by far more probable than any union of such heterogeneous materials for the purposes of foreign conquest. However, Napoleon thought directly the reverse on the subject, and no man had greater opportunities of forming a correct opinion. It seems almost impertinent to differ from him.

The following observations are in Napoleon's best style, and evince a sound judgment and great sagacity. He had been reading Racine's Phedre and Athalie, and Voltaire's Mahomet. "Voltaire," said the Emperor, "in the character and conduct of his hero, (Mahomet) has departed both from nature and from history. He has degraded Mahomet by making him descend to the lowest intrigues. He has represented a great man, who changed the face of the world, acting like a scoundrel worthy of the gallows. He has committed a fundamental error in attributing to intrigue what was solely the result of opinion. Those who have wrought great changes in the world never succeeded by gaining over chiefs, but always by exciting

the multitude. The first is the source of intrigue, and produces only secondary results; the second is the resort of genius, and transforms the face of the universe. Mahomet must doubtless have been like all chiefs of sects. The Koran, having been written thirty years after his death, may have recorded many false hoods. The empire of the Prophet, his doctrine, and his mission, being established and fulfilled, people might and must have spoken accordingly. Still it remains to be explained how the mighty event which we are certain did take place, namely, the conquest of the world, could have been effected in the short space of fifty or sixty years. By whom was it brought about? By the hordes of the desert, who, as we are informed, were few in number, ignorant, unwarlike, undisciplined, and destitute of system, and yet they opposed the civilized world abounding in resources. Fanaticism could not have accomplished this miracle, for fanaticism must have had time to accomplish her dominion; and the career of Mahomet lasted only thirteen years. Independently of the fortuitous events by which miracles are sometimes produced, there must have been in this case some hidden circumstances which has never been transmitted to our knowledge. Europe had doubtless sunk beneath some first cause, of which we are ignorant; the different races of people who suddenly issued from the deserts had, perhaps, been engaged in long civil wars, in which men of heroic character and great talent might have risen up, and irresistible impulses have been created." In these observations there is an abundant field for reflection. This is reading history philosophically, it is reading history as Tacitus wrote it. But as to Voltaire, the Emperor unquestionably has attriFRANCE.

Inhabitants. Condemned to Years.
Death.

......

34,000,000. .882...... .1801.
42,000,000.....
......392......1811.

buted to ignorance what was the effect of his sagacity; Voltaire's great object in writing the tragedy of Mahomet was not to give any portrait of the great genius of that surprising character, but to shew that the miracles and revelations of the Koran were either false and absurd, or the effect of trick and imposition; and his impious hope was to create in the spectators associations of ideas with other revelations, and to lead a christian audience to the conclusion, ex uno disce omnes, an object in which he has greatly failed. We must all recollect the very current report, spread for the purpose of casting ridicule on the Emperor, of his having taken lessons of declamation from Talma. What sound good sense the Emperor displayed by his opinions and sentiments on this occasion; the report was false, and the Emperor rallying Talma on the subject, the tragedian was disconcerted and confused. "You are wrong," said the Emperor," I certainly could not have employed myself better, if I had had leisure for it." He then proceeds to give Talma a lesson; "Racine," continued the Emperor, "has loaded his character of Orestes with imbecilities, and you only add to their extravagance. In the Mort de Pompée, you do not play Cæsar like a hero, in Britannicus you do not play Nero like a tyrant.” And Talma improved himself by the hints.

The great work of Napoleon, which will transmit his name to posterity with more glory even than his conquests, is his code of laws. A code which seems to have attained to as much perfection as any thing human can attain to, and on the principles of which all foreign jurisconsultes now build their systems. The great effect of these laws may be ascertained to demonstration by the following statement.

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The Emperor was a disbeliever in Revelation, and probably meant this observation on the Koran to be applied to Christianity, some parts of the Sacred Volumes of Christianity having been written even so late as ninety-seven years after the death of him to whom they relate.

So that these laws had so improved the French people, that in only ten years the capital convictions from being as 26 to 1,000,000 decreased as 9 to 1,000,000; whilst in England the capital convictions had increased from 212 to 376 out of every million. The condemnations in England exceed those in France in the proportion of 42 to 1.

The Emperor's plans for educating his son and the children of the different members of his family were admirably adapted to render them efficient sovereigns, and still better adapted to consolidate the interests of his family, and to permanently establish his dynasty, and to insure it a superiority over the other sovereign families of Europe. In the first Volume, Part II. we refer our readers to interest

ing passages, respecting the system of the French post as to opening letters (page 52;) to his notions respecting the liberty of the press (page 55;) to his tact in composing his court of the old nobles, and assimilating it to the old regime (page 268;) to his opinions of the Kings of Saxony and Prussia, and of the Emperors of Austria and Russia, and of the mischief to be apprehended from this latter potentate (pages 297 to 302;) to his remarkable and highly important conversation with Mr. Benjamin Constant respecting his views and intentions towards Europe in 1815 (page 314,) the Emperor's views in this conference are remarkably grand, and he shews clearly that it was both his intention and his interest to abstain from wars and foreign conquest, and to govern France by a free press and representative constitution. If Europe could have depended on the ruling passion not warping him from such designs, every rational and philosophic mind must lament his downfall. In page 238, the Emperor shews clearly the weakness of the principles on which the Bourbons act, and concludes that their errors will only irritate the French, and not subdue the spirit of freedom. In page 361, the mind is led into a chain of great reflections by the Emperor's calculations of the prodigious effects, which would have resulted from his capture of St. Jean d'Acre, and the permanent occupation of Egypt by the French. The

most fertile, extensive and interesting regions of Asia and Africa would at this day have been in a course of civilization. We have read of great praises bestowed on Alexander and Cæsar for their self-possession in sleeping on the eve of a battle; but it appears that Napoleon would sleep even during a battle, and on horse back within range of the enemy's cannon. "I was obliged to do so," said Napoleon, "when I fought battles that lasted three days. Nature was also to have her due; I took advantage of the smallest intervals, and slept where and when I could." The exertions of his intellect were so prodigious as to exhaust the physical powers of the brain, and he would fall asleep at a tangent immediately he had pronounced the last word of a speech or order, so that many persons conceived the idea of his being disposed to apoplexy. In page 30, of Vol. II. Part III. the Count gives us the Emperor's opinions upon Talleyrand, Pozzo di Borgo, Bassano, Clarke, Le Brun, Cambaceres, &c.

but he often inserts whole lines of asterisks when he arrives at any thing important, so that it really seems as if he were quizzing the reader. For instance, at the head of a chapter he promises us the Emperor's opinions of Prince Metternich, and anxious to learn something of so great a Cabinet Minister, we refer to the page, and find the following matter. "He (the Emperor) then spoke of M. de Metternich, 'It was he,' said Napoleon, who'" and this is all we learn of Prince Metternich, for immediately after the "who," we have three lines of asterisks. Count Las Cases ought to blush at such imbecility, or at such a low trick at book-making,

The following opinions, thoughts and intentions, were entertained by Napoleon, and they are either extraordinary or important. He was a fatalist, and trusted much to his "lucky star." He saw but two chances of his ever quitting Saint Helena, that of his being wanted by the sovereigns to suppress the rebellion of their subjects, or that of his being wanted by the people of Europe against their sovereigns in the contests that might arise between the despotism of courts, and the in

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