Emperor of the French Napoleon I

“ I have destroyed the Austrian army by marches alone; I have made 60,000 prisoners, taken 120 pieces of cannon, more than 90 flags, and more than 30 generals. I am about to fling myself on the Russians; they are lost men. I am satisfied with my army. I have only lost 1500 men, of whom two-thirds are but slightly wounded.
Prince Charles is on his way to cover Vienna. I think Massena should be already at Vicenza.
The moment I can give my thoughts to Italy, I will make Eugène win a battle.
Very best wishes to Hortense.
Adieu, my Josephine; kindest regards to every one.
Napoleon. ”

“ It is a sad one, my mind is distressed—it is the death of Chauvet. He was commissionaire ordinateur en chef of the army; you have sometimes seen him at the house of Barras. My love, I feel the need of consolation. It is by writing to thee, to thee alone, the thought of whom can so influence my moral being, to whom I must pour out my troubles. What means the future? what means the past? what are we ourselves? what magic fluid surrounds and hides from us the things that it behoves us most to know? We are born, we live, we die in the midst of marvels ”

“ To the Empress, at Paris.
Warsaw, January 26, 1807, Noon.
My Dear,—I have received your letter. It pains me to see how you are fretting yourself. The bridge of Mayence neither increases nor decreases the distance which separates us. Remain, therefore, at Paris. I should be vexed and uneasy to know that you were so miserable and so isolated at Mayence. You must know that I ought, that I can, consider only the success of my enterprise. If I could consult my heart I should be with you, or you with me; for you would be most unjust if you doubted my love and entire affection.
Napoleon. ”

“ Everything that comes from Napoleon, and everything that appertains to him, will always excite the lively attention of contemporaries and posterity. If the lofty meditation of philosophy concerns itself only with the general influence of great men upon their own generation and future ones, a curiosity of another nature, and not less greedy, loves to penetrate into the inmost recesses of their soul, in order to elicit their most secret inclinations. It likes to learn what has been left of the man, amid the preoccupations of their projects and the elevation of their fortune. ”

“ Yours has been the true balm for me. Be happy, be as much so as you deserve; it is my whole heart which speaks to you. You have also just given me my share of happiness, and a share which I value the most, for nothing can equal in my estimation a proof that you still remember me.
Adieu, dear; I again thank you as affectionately as I shall always love you.
Josephine.
No. 2a.
To the Empress Josephine, at the Château Navarre. ”

“ Being good-natured, I waited till June 1st, as if a pretty woman would give up her habits, her friends, both Madame Tallien and a dinner with Barras, and the acting of a new play, and Fortuné; yes, Fortuné, whom you love much more than your husband, for whom you have only a little of the esteem, and a share of that benevolence with which your heart abounds. Every day I count up your misdeeds. I lash myself to fury in order to love you no more. ”

“ But to adopt this fundamental common-sense with regard to the character of Napoleon is almost impossible; it is, to use the metaphor of Lord Rosebery, like trying to span a mountain with a tape. We can but indicate a few leading features. In the first place, he had, like the great Stagirite, an eye at once telescopic and microscopic. Beyond the mécanique céleste, beyond the nebulous reign of chaos and old night, his ken pierced the primal truth—the need of a Creator: "not every one can be an atheist who wishes it." No man saw deeper into the causes of things. ”

“ May 20th.—On this date he writes Hortense: "My daughter, all the news I get from the Hague tells me that you are not rational. However legitimate your grief, it must have limits: never impair your health; seek distractions, and know that life is strewn with so many rocks, and may be the source of so many miseries, that death is not the greatest of all.—Your affectionate father, Napoleon." ”

“ Junot bears to Paris twenty-two flags. You ought to return with him, do you understand? Be ready, if that is not disagreeable to you. Should he not come, woe without remedy; should he come back to me alone, grief without consolation, constant anxiety. My Beloved, he will see you, he will breathe on your temples; perhaps you will accord him the unique and priceless favour of kissing your cheek, and I, I shall be alone and very far away; but you are about to come, are you not? You will soon be beside me, on my breast, in my arms, over your mouth. Take wings, come quickly, but travel gently. ”

“ Friedland.—On this day he wrote a further letter to the Queen of Holland (No. 12,761 of the Correspondence) : "My daughter, I have your letter dated Orleans. Your grief pains me, but I should like you to possess more courage; to live is to suffer, and the true man is always fighting for mastery over himself. I do not like to see you unjust towards the little Napoleon Louis, and towards all your friends. ”

“ We have made five thousand prisoners, and killed at least six thousand of the enemy. Good-bye, my adored Josephine. Think of me often. If you cease to love your Achilles, if for him your heart grows cold, you will be very cruel, very unjust. But I am sure you will always remain my faithful mistress, as I shall ever remain your fond lover. Death alone can break the chain which sympathy, love, and sentiment have forged. Let me have news of your health. A thousand and a thousand kisses.
No. 16.
To Josephine, at Milan.
Verona, November 23, 1796. ”

“ Criticising English legal phraseology, the Archbishop of Canterbury said, "The French Code is always welcome in every country where it has been introduced; and where people have once got hold of it, they are unwilling to have it changed for any other, because it is a marvel of clearness." Surely if ever Style is the Man, it is Napoleon, otherwise the inspection of over seven million words, as marshalled forth in his Correspondence, would not only confuse but confound. ”

“ The chief generals were sick of the war; I had gorged them too much with my high esteem, with too many honours and too much wealth. They had drunk from the cup of pleasure, and wished to enjoy peace at any price. The sacred fire was quenched."
Up to August Fortune had smiled again upon her favourite. With conscripts for infantry and without cavalry he had won Lutzen, Bautzen, and Dresden; and even so late as September Byron was writing that "bar epilepsy and the elements he would back Napoleon against the field." ”

“ My children have worthily celebrated the anniversary of the battle of Marengo.
The battle of Friedland will be as celebrated for my people, and equally glorious. The entire Russian army routed, 80 pieces of cannon captured, 30,000 men taken or slain, 25 Russian generals killed, wounded, or taken, the Russian Guard wiped out. 114 The battle is worthy of her sisters—Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena. The bulletin will tell you the rest. My loss is not considerable. I out-manœuvred the enemy successfully.
Be content and without uneasiness.
Adieu, dear; my horse is waiting.
Napoleon. ”

“ This, says Pasquier, undoubtedly hastened the Emperor's return. Ignoring the complicity of Fouché, the whole weight of his anger falls on Talleyrand, who loses the post of High Chamberlain, which he had enjoyed since 1804. For half-an-hour this "arch-apostate," as Lord Rosebery calls him, receives a torrent of invectives. "You are a thief, a coward, a man without honour; you do not believe in God; you have all your life been a traitor to your duties; you have deceived and betrayed everybody: nothing is sacred to you; you would sell your own father. ”

“ She had been sent to take the waters of Cauterets, and had left her child Napoleon Louis (who died at Forli, 1831) with Josephine, who writes to her daughter (June 11th) : "He amuses me much; he is so gentle. I find he has all the ways of that poor child that we mourn." And a few days later: "There remains to you a husband, an interesting child, and a mother whose love you know." Josephine had with women the same tact that her husband had with men, but the Bonaparte family, with all its good qualities, strained the tact and tempers of both to the utmost. ”

“ Without appetite, without sleep, without care for my friends, for glory, for fatherland, you, you alone—the rest of the world exists no more for me than if it were annihilated. I prize honour since you prize it, I prize victory since it pleases you; without that I should leave everything in order to fling myself at your feet. 13
Sometimes I tell myself that I alarm myself unnecessarily; that even now she is better, that she is starting, has started, is perhaps already at Lyons. Vain fancies! you are in bed suffering, more beautiful, more interesting, more lovable. ”

“ The warmth of your letter makes me realise that you, like other pretty women, know no bounds. What you will, must be; but, as for me, I declare that of all men I am the greatest slave; my master has no pity, and this master is the nature of things. ”

“ In your letter, dear, be sure to tell me that you are convinced that I love you more than it is possible to imagine; that you are persuaded that all my moments are consecrated to you; that to think of any other woman has never entered my head—they are all in my eyes without grace, wit, or beauty ”

“ The sending of old masters to France to adorn her National Galleries seems to have been entirely a conception of Napoleon's. He has given sufficiently good reasons, from a patriotic point of view; for money is soon spent, but a masterpiece may encourage Art among his countrymen a generation later. The plunderers of the Parthenon of 1800 could not henceforward throw stones at him in this respect. But his real object was to win the people of Paris by thus sending them Glory personified in unique works of genius. ”

“ The loss of Lannes was a more serious one to Napoleon than the whole 20,000 men lost in this battle. The master himself has told us that "in war men are nothing, a man is everything." They could be replaced: Lannes never. Like Kléber and Desaix, he stood on a higher platform than the older Marshals—except Massena, who had serious drawbacks, and who was the only one of Napoleon's best generals that Wellington met in the Peninsula. Lannes had always the ear of the Emperor, and always told him facts, not flattery. ”

“ You are pale and your eyes are more languishing, but when will you be cured? If one of us ought to be ill it is I—more robust, more courageous; I should support illness more easily. Destiny is cruel, it strikes at me through you.
What consoles me sometimes is to think that it is in the power of destiny to make you ill; but it is in the power of no one to make me survive you. ”

“ All history demonstrates that there is one stage of civilisation when the inhabitants of a metropolis are capable of such a sacrifice in defence of their country, and only one; and that when passed, it is never recovered. The event has proved that the Russians, in 1812, were in the state of progress when such a heroic act was possible, but that the inhabitants of Vienna and Paris had passed it. Most certainly the citizens of London would never have buried themselves under the ruins of the Bank, the Treasury, or Leadenhall Street before capitulating to Napoleon. ”

“ May my good genius, which has always preserved me in the midst of great dangers, surround you, enfold you, while I will face my fate unguarded. Ah! be not gay, but a trifle melancholy; and especially may your soul be free from worries, as your body from illness: you know what our good Ossian says on this subject. Write me, dear, and at full length, and accept the thousand and one kisses of your most devoted and faithful friend.
[This letter is translated from St. Amand's La Citoyenne Bonaparte, p. 3, 1892.]
March 27th.—Arrival at Nice and proclamation to the soldiers. ”

“ Sire,—Augustus numbered Cæsar among the gods, and dedicated to him a temple; the temple has disappeared, the Commentaries remain. Your Majesty, wishing to raise to the chief of your dynasty an imperishable monument, has ordered us to gather together and publish the political, military, and administrative correspondence of Napoleon I. It has realised that the most conspicuous (éclatant) homage to render to this incomparable genius was to make him known in his entirety. ”