eastern enchantment; for he made and unmade kings at his will, and
confounding all the established conceptions and expectations of men,
asserted and won his right to fix for a time the destinies of nations.
His extreme hour of greatness was in 1813, after the fearful retreat
from Russia, when in a few months he summoned a new army to his side
from the fields of exhausted France, and alone defied, and almost
overcame, the united strength of the rest of civilized Europe. The most
ignoble period of his life is found on the barren rock of St. Helena,
when, treacherous to his former grandeur, he was afflicted and absorbed
by the worthless and passing annoyances of the moment. His career was
that of a dazzling meteor, astonishing all men in its fiery passage, but
creating little else than amazement, and admiration mingled with fear.
Not naturally cruel, he enacted cruelties. Brave in the field, he lacked
the true heroic element. He used all men for his own advancement, and
counted human life valueless, when its sacrifice might add to his
imagined glory. Superstitious, but not religious. Framed for intensest
exertion, indefatigable, impatient, irritable, untruthful, theatrical,
petty. Yet a grand lawgiver; cognisant of the wants of men, and capable
of meeting them, had his lust of ambition suffered him to provide for
the interests of his people as sedulously as for his own. His character,
a singular conflict of great virtues with small vices, and of great
vices with small virtues. The most splendid soldier since the days of
Julius Cæsar, and the idol of his army. The uncle of Napoleon III., the
present Emperor of France.
[From the marble in the Louvre by Houdon.]
311A. NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. _Emperor of France._
[The colossal bust by Canova.]
311B. NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. _Emperor of France._
[An ideal bust by Thorwaldsen, supported on the French eagle with palm
branches.]
311C. NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. _Emperor of France._