poets, with usurpation, with civil wars, and great men, when the Asiatic world was opened, with all its riches, its ridiculous and despised religions, its enervated satraps, its populations rotten before being ripe, its superannuated governments, and its boundless territory, to the ambition of the young Alexander.

The Roman universe, harassed by the disgust of the great body of the people for a stormy liberty, and by the want of unity after the conquests of Asia, Spain, Gaul and England, was awaiting but a master, and gave itself still more to Cæsar than Cæsar desired it. The legions of veterans, accustomed to conquest under his command, knew no longer but the fasces and the name of Cæsar. Rome also aspired but to assign him the sceptre of the world, which her feeble hands could no longer bear.

Napoleon, in his turn, adroitly possessed himself of the active forces of the Revolution, which, tired of boiling up from the bottom of the crater and sinking back upon themselves, sought an outlet whereby to diffuse themselves abroad, and overflowed in the direction of conquest. He was master, because he had the wish, because he had the ability, and because he had the skill to be one. He absorbed, in the unity of his dominion, all conscience, intelligence, and liberty. He had boldness because he had genius, and perhaps he had genius because he had audacity. He despised men, because he understood them. He loved glory, because all beside was insufficient to fill the immense void of his soul. He devoured time, he devoured space; he must needs live quicker, progress quicker than other men; he weighed the world in his hand and deemed it light. He dreamt the eternity of his dynasty and universal monarchy.

But after having thus exalted the conquerors, Providence puts out with a breath the splendor of their diadem, and presents them a spectacle to the universe, to teach it that, despite their glory and the sublimity of their sway, they are but men, and that, like all men, they are subject to the vicissi tudes of life and limited by the nothingness of the grave.

Thus Alexander perished in the bloom of his age, satiated with triumphs and debaucheries, amid the intoxication of a royal festival. Cæsar fell at the base of Pompey's statue, smitten by a republican dagger, when he was about to get himself crowned by the Senate, perpetual Emperor of Rome, after having brought under her laws the entire globe. In fine, Napoleon paused not in the career of his ambition until he had been driven upon a solitary rock, surrounded on all sides by the billows of the ocean.

Napoleon was one of those prodigious men who feel themselves born and who are formed for the government and subjugation of nations. Men of this description must die or reign. They are raised scarce a step above the rank of common soldiers, when they give their commands as if they were generals. Though still no more than subjects, they talk with the authoritative tone of masters.

Napoleon was not born, like Alexander, on the steps of a throne, nor like Caesar, in the folds of the Senatorial purple. But as soon as he put a sword in his hand, he commanded, and when he commanded, he reigned. A simple captain, he besieged and took Toulon. A general of brigade, he organized the defence of the 13th Vendemiaire and saved the Convention. A generalissimo of the army of Italy, he treated like a king with the kings, the potentates, and the Pope. Vanquisher of Egypt, he conducts this expedition. with the authority of an absolute chief; returns from Africa without letters of recall, lands at Frejus, traverses Franco in triumph, makes the Directory quake, draws in his train the other generals, expels the two Councils, improvisates a new constitution, and takes into his own hands the reins of the government. Emperor, he holds under his feet, in mute obedience, the Senate, the Legislative body, the adminis tration, the people and the army. So that it may be said Napoleon never served, and that he could never have brought himself to submit to the authority of a parliament or a king, any more than Alexander could have obeyed the

confedera ion of the Greeks, or Cæsar the orders of the Ro man Senate.

To wish that Alexander, Cæsar, and Napoleon had not been masters, in what place or time soever they might have lived, were to forget, were to misapprehend their nature, their genius and destiny. The son of the Macedonian, the pupil of Aristotle, led captive by his eloquence as well as his triumphs, the imaginations of the Greeks and of the Barbarians. Cæsar swayed the Roman legions by the ascendant of his eloquence. Napoleon won all at once over the old generals of the republic, over his army and the nation, the resistless empire of victory and genius.

We find in the proclamations, bulletins, and orders of the day of Napoleon, the qualities of the soldier, the art of the orator, and the profound and subtle sense of the politician. It is not only the language of a general, nor of a king, nor of a statesman, it is all these at the same time. If Napoleon was a consummate orator, it is that he was a complete man. What splendor has not genius united with power! What authority must not the language of this ravager of nations, this founder of states, have derived from the majesty of supreme command, the eminence and perpetuity of the generalship, the immense number of his troops, their fidelity and attachment, the multiplied splendor of his victories, the novelty, the suddenness, the hardihood, and the extraordinary grandeur of his enterprises. Napoleon combined all the conditions of personal boldness, of sovereign power, and of political and military talents in the highest degree of any commander of modern times, and it is in this that he is with them, in all respects, incomparable.

For the rest, let us not confound the military apothegms with the harangues of which we shall speak afterwards.

Sublime apothegms abound in the warlike annals of all countries and all times. "Return alive with thy shield, or dead upon it," said a Spartan mother to her son. "Our forests of arrows will darken the sun-light." "So much the better," replied Lecidas to Xerxes, we shall fight in the

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shade." Cæsar stumbles in setting foot on the coast of Africa. Instantly, to avert the evil presage, he cries: "Africa, I embrace thee!" Henry IV., at Coutras, slipping out from amidst his guard: "Stand aloof, gentlemen, I pray you, do not hide me, I desire to be seen." Villars, expiring, laments: "This Berwick has just been cut in twain with a ball! and I die in my bed! I always said Berwick would have the better fortune!" Larochejaquelin, the Vendean general, rushes into the thickest of the battle, saying: "I wish to be but a hussar for the pleasure of sharing the fight." And this remark of Kleber to Bonaparte: "General, you are great like the world!" And those beautiful words of Desaix: "Go say to the First Consul that I die with the regret of having done too little for posterity!" And these, of generals, of captains, of soldiers, and of drummers: "The Guard dies, but does not surrender!" "Hither, d'Auvergne, it is the enemy!" "I die, but they fly!" "I have a hand still left to beat the charge!" And a number of others.

Napoleon too gave utterance to a multitude of military a pothegms:

To the Commissioner of the National Convention, at Toulon: "Mind your business of representative, and let me mind mine of artillerist." To the troops who were giving ground on the terrible bridge of Arcola: "Onward! follow your general!" To his soldiers in Egypt: "Forty ages look down upon you from the height of yonder pyramids!" To the plenipotentiaries at Leoben: "The French Republic is like the sun. Blind are those who do not see it!" To the army at Marengo: "Soldiers, remember it is my habit to sleep on the field of battle!" To his soldiers of artillery, revolted at Turin: "This flag, which you have deserted, will be hung up in the temple of Mars and enveloped in mourning. Your corps is disbanded." To the fourth regiment of the line: "What have you done with your eagle? A regiment which has lost its eagle, has lost its all!" "Yes, but here are two standards we have taken from the enemy." "Very good," said he, smiling, "I will give you back your

eagle!" To Gneral Moreau, on presenting him a pair of pistols, richly mounted: "I designed to have them engraved with the names of all your victories. But there was not room enough to contain them." To a grenadier, surprised by sleep, and whose guard Napoleon was mounting: "After so much fatigue, it may be well permitted a brave fellow like you to fall asleep." To a soldier who was excusing himself for having, against orders, let General Tourbert enter his tent: "Go, he who forced the Tyrol, may well force a sentinel." To a Court general, who solicited him for a marshal's staff: "It is not I who make the marshals, it is victory." To a Russian commandant of artillery at Austerlitz, who said to him: "Sire, have me shot! I have lost my pieces." "Young man, console yourself! it is possible to be beaten by my army, and have still some titles to glory." To his army on opening the Russian campaign: "Soldiers, Russia is hurried along by fate; let her destinies be accomplished." On beholding, the morning of the battle of Moscow, the sun rise cloudless: "It is the sun of Austerlitz!" To his grenadiers who were alarmed on seeing him point the cannon at Montereir: “Come, my friends, fear nothing, the ball to kill me is not yet cast." At Grenoble, on his return from the Isle of Elba, in presence of a regiment who hesitated, he leaped off his horse, and uncovering his breast: "If there be one amongst you, if there be a single individual who wishes to kill his general, his Emperor, he can do so here I am!"

But it is in his military harangues especially that we disCover Napoleon. He became at once an orator, as he did a general. What astonishes particularly in so young a man, is the fertility, the soupleness, the discernment of his genius. He knows what to say, what to do, what to be to all, on every occasion. No one has taught it to him, and yet he knows it all. Towards the Pope he is perfectly respectful, while capturing his cities. Prince Charles he treats with the loftiness of an equal and the courtesy of a knight. He enjoins discipline, he honors artists and learned men, he