Napoleon went forth to seek Virtue but,
since she was not to be found, he got Power.
- Goethe
He has a presentiment that someday he will set Corsica free. As yet all the lad of fourteen can do is to pore over books about his homeland, for he who would make history must first study history.
"Men who are truly great are like meteors: they shine and consume themselves, that they may lighten the darkness of the earth."
But as he sails westward, and as the French coast draws near, our adventurer enjoys the sense of freedom that comes to him who is everywhere at home. Such is a happy lot of the man who has no country.
"But what is happiness?", asks the lady.
"Happiness?" answers Bonaparte, "The highest possible development of my talents."
But the crowd must be learning to hate him, for, in that darkling hour, hundreds of unarmed citizens, ideal spectators, women have perished. What is that to him? It is not his aim to be loved.
"I would rather live in the woods, than in the State where there is no security."
"All France will be free; save only him, perhaps - that is his destiny."
"Better carry that chair away before we begin," says the commander. "I have never been able to see a raised seat without wanting to sit in it."
He had the precious faculty of being able to go to sleep wherever and as often as he pleased.
"You are asking me to perform miracles, and I cannot do that...Only with prudence and foresight can we achieve great ends. It is but a step from victory to defeat. In affairs of magnitude I have learned that, in the last resort, everything invariably turns upon the trifle."
"Only in the East have there been great empires and mighty changes; in the East, where six hundred million people dwell. Europe is a mole hill!"
"Better never to have lived, than to exist, and pass without leaving a trace."
"I am always at work; I think a great deal. If I appeared to be ever ready and equal to any occasion, it is because I have thought over matters for long before I undertake to do the slightest thing; I have foreseen all eventualities. There exists no guardian angel who suddenly and mysteriously whispers in my ear what I have to do or to say. Everything is turned over in my mind, again and again, always, whether I am at the table or at the theatre. At night I wake up in order to work."
"Not a moment must be lost', is his slogan even when nothing presses for decision. The instinctive impetus of an overburdened but short life drives him forward; it seems as if he could not arrive quickly enough at the end of his career.
"Since I am used to great events, they make no impression on me at the moment when they are reported; I feel the pain an hour later.'
He has conjured up the Gods, now they have come.
"History is the only true philosophy."
"Mankind is prone to gratitude rather than to ingratitude; the only trouble is, people always expect more thanks than the deed is worth."
"To live means to suffer; but the brave man is continually striving for self-mastery and achieves it in the end."
"What I see in religion is, not the mystery of the incarnation, but social order. It associates with heaven an idea of equality, which prevents the poor from massacring the rich. Religion has the same sort of value as vaccination. It gratifies our taste for the miraculous, but protects us from quacks; for the priests are worth more than the Cagliostros, the Kants, and all the German dreamers...Society cannot exist without inequality of property; but this latter cannot exist without religion. One who is dying of hunger when the man next to him is feasting on dainties, can only be sustained by a belief in a higher power, and by the conviction that in another world there will be different distribution of goods."
Among the numerous heraldic emblems which might have tickled the fancy of an upstart - stars, tutelary deities, saints, beasts of prey - he finds none to please him. He chooses the bee, thus emphasising once more that a man of talent who aspires and works unceasingly, can achieve everything that can otherwise be achieved through what is vaguely spoken of as genius. He declares that genius is industry; meaning, of course, that genius is industry among other things. He says that work is his element, that for which he has been created. Had he left nothing behind him, had all his works perished, still his industry and his glory would have been an emblematic stimulus to the youth of countless generations after he had passed away.
Fame is the supreme goal of his egotism; substantially, it is the only goal. All his energies are directed towards this end: his consciousness of his uniqueness; his historic sense; his sense of honour; his dignity; the boy's dream; the youth's plan; the man's deeds; the prisoner's unrest.
"One must curb one's imagination, otherwise one is liable to go mad."
"Wickedness is always individual, never collective. Joseph's brethren could not make up their minds to kill him, but Judas betrayed his master."
"All that you say to my son, or all that he learns, will be of little use to him, unless he has in the depths of his heart that sacred fire and love of good which alone can achieve great things."
His mood vacillates between heroic pathos and irony. When his valet reports that a comet is visible, the Emperor rejoins: "That was the sign before the death of Ceasar." But when the doctor declares that there is no comet to be seen, the sick man says: "Well, people die without comets!"
"France!...Armee!...Tete d' armee!...Josephine!"
This is Napoleon's last utterance. There is no sign of pain; his eyes are widely opened, staring into vacancy; the death rattle is in his throat. As the tropical sun sinks into the sea the Emperor's heart stops beating.
