Anecdotes of Napoleon Bonaparte and His Times

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J.B. Perry, 1855 - 504 pages

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Page vi - Corsica waving his imperial flag over her most ancient capitals. All the visions of antiquity became common places in his contemplation; kings were his people — nations were his outposts; and he disposed of courts, and crowns, and camps, and churches, and cabinets, as if they were the titular dignitaries of the chessboard!
Page iv - Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne, a sceptred hermit, wrapt in the solitude of his own originality. A mind bold, independent, and decisive — a will, despotic in its dictates — an energy...
Page iv - Revolution that quickened every energy of a people who acknowledged no superior, he commenced his course a stranger by birth and a scholar by charity ! With no friend but his sword, and no fortune but his talents, he rushed into the lists where rank, and wealth, and genius had arrayed themselves, and competition fled from him as from the glance of destiny. He knew no motive...
Page vi - Skepticism bowed to the prodigies of his performance; romance assumed the air of history; nor was there aught too incredible for belief, or too fanciful for expectation, when the world saw a subaltern of Corsica waving his imperial flag over her most ancient capitals.
Page iv - ... that distanced expedition, and a conscience pliable to every touch of interest, marked the outline of this extraordinary character — the most extraordinary, perhaps, that, in the annals of this world, ever rose, or reigned, or fell.
Page 448 - A short time afterwards, referring to the same subject, he exclaimed, " In that extraordinary campaign, thrice, in less than a week's space, I saw the certain triumph of France and the determination of her fate slip through my fingers. Had it not been for the desertion of a traitor, I should have annihilated the enemy at the outset of the campaign.
Page vi - His person partook the character of his mind — if the one never yielded in the cabinet, the other never bent in the field. Nature had no obstacles that he did not surmount ; space no opposition that he did not spurn : and whether amid Alpine rocks, Arabian sands, or polar snows, he seemed proof against peril, and empowered with ubiquity!
Page 416 - ... in our affairs. Who would pretend to be master over us ? Who would have the power ? Resume those eagles which you had at Ulm, at Austerlitz, at Jena, at Eylau, at Wagram, at Friedland, at Tudela, at Eckmuhl, at Essling, at Smolensk, at the Moskwa, at Lutzen, at Wurtchen, at Montmirail.
Page 36 - On seeing the sword, he burst into tears. I felt so much affected by his conduct, that I noticed and praised him much. A few days afterwards his mother came to return me a visit of thanks. I was much struck with her appearance, and still more with her ftfrit. The first impression was daily strengthened, and marriage was not long in following.
Page 480 - ... together so that I might pass over. They answered that it was possible, but hazardous. I desired them to set about it instantly. In the course of a few hours they succeeded in effecting what the others had pronounced to be impossible, and I crossed before the evening was over. I ordered those who had worked at it to receive a sum of money each, a suit of clothes, and their liberty. Marchand was with me at the time.

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