The Life, Exile and Conversations with Napoleon - Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné Las Cases

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powers. His reading had been very extensive, and he had profoundly meditated on the fund of knowledge thus acquired, much of which, he used to say, he had probably since lost. His sparkling and ready wit and energetic language distinguished him wherever he went: he was a favourite with every one, particularly with the fair sex, to whom he recommended himself by the elegance and novelty of his ideas, and the boldness of his arguments. As for the men, they were often afraid to engage with him in those discussions into which he was led by a natural confidence in his own powers.

      Many individuals, who knew him at an early period of life, predicted his extraordinary career; and they viewed the events of his life without astonishment. At an early age he gained anonymously a prize at the Academy of Lyons, on the following question, proposed by Raynal:—“What are the principles and institutions calculated to advance mankind to the highest possible degree of happiness?” The anonymous memorial excited great attention: it was perfectly in unison with the ideas of the age. It began by enquiring in what happiness consisted; and the answer was, in the perfect enjoyment of life in the manner most conformable with our moral and physical organization. After he became Emperor, Napoleon was one day conversing on this subject with M. de Talleyrand: the latter, like a skilful courtier, shortly after presented to him the famous memorial, which he had procured from the archives of the Academy of Lyons. The Emperor took it, and, after reading a few pages, threw into the fire this first production of his youth. “We can never think of every thing,” said Napoleon: and M. de Talleyrand had not taken the precaution of having it copied.

      The Prince de Condé one day visited the Artillery school at Auxonne; and the cadets considered it a high honour to be examined by that military prince. The commandant, in spite of the hierarchy, placed young Napoleon at the head of the polygon, in preference to others of superior rank. It happened that, on the day preceding the examination, all the cannons of the polygon were spiked: but Napoleon was too much on the alert to be caught by this trick of his comrades, or snare, perhaps, of the illustrious traveller.

      It is generally believed that Napoleon, in his boyhood, was taciturn, sullen, and morose: on the contrary, he was of a very lively turn. He never appeared more delighted than when relating to us the various tricks he was accustomed to play when at the School of Artillery. In describing the joyous moments of his early youth, he seems to forget the misfortunes which hold him in captivity.

      There was an old commandant, upwards of eighty years of age, for whom the cadets entertained a very high respect, notwithstanding the many jokes they played upon him. One day, while he was examining them in their cannon exercise, and watching every discharge with his eye-glass, he asserted they were far from hitting the mark, and asked those near him if they had seen the ball strike. Nobody had observed the youths’ slipping aside the ball every time they loaded. The old general was rather sharp; after five or six discharges, he took it into his head to count the balls. The trick was discovered. The general thought it a very good one; but nevertheless ordered all who had participated in it to be put under arrest.

      The cadets would occasionally take a pique at some of their captains, or determine to revenge themselves on others to whom they owed a grudge. They then resolved to banish them from society, and to reduce them to the necessity of putting themselves under a sort of arrest. Four or five of the cadets undertook to execute the design. They fastened on their victim; pursued him into every company, and he was not suffered to open his mouth without being methodically and logically contradicted, though always with a strict regard to politeness: at length the poor fellow found that retirement was his only alternative.

      “On another occasion,” Napoleon used to relate, “one of my comrades who lodged above me unluckily took a fancy to learn to play the horn, and made such a hideous noise as completely disturbed the studies of those who were within hearing. We met each other one day on the stairs; ‘Are you not tired of practising the horn?’ said I. ‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘At any rate, you tire other people.’ ‘I am sorry for it.’ ‘It would be better if you went to practise elsewhere.’ ‘I am master of my own apartment.’ ‘Perhaps you may be taught to entertain a doubt on that point.’ ‘I scarcely think any one will be bold enough to attempt to teach me that.’” A challenge ensued; but before the antagonists met, the affair was submitted to the consideration of a council of the cadets, and it was determined that the one should practise the horn at a greater distance, and that the other should be more accommodating.

      In the campaign of 1814, the Emperor again met his horn-player in the neighbourhood of Soissons or Laon: he was residing on his estate, and gave some important information respecting the enemy’s position. The Emperor made him one of his aides-de-camp; this officer was Colonel Bussy.

      When attached to his artillery-regiment, Napoleon seized every opportunity of mingling in company, where he invariably made an agreeable impression. Women at that time attached a high value to wit in the other sex; it was a quality which never failed to win their good graces. Napoleon, at this period, performed what he termed his Sentimental Journey from Valence to Mont-Cenis in Burgundy, and he intended to write an account of it after the manner of Sterne. The faithful Desmazzis was of the party: he was constantly with him, and his narrative of Napoleon’s private life, if combined with the details of his public career, would form a perfect history of the Emperor. It would then be seen that, however extraordinary his life might be with respect to its incidents, yet nothing could be more simple or natural than its course.

      Circumstances and reflection have considerably modified his character. Even his style of expression, now so concise and laconic, was in his youth diffuse and emphatic. At the time of the Legislative Assembly, Napoleon assumed a serious and severe demeanour, and became less communicative than before. The army of Italy also marked another epoch in his character. His extreme youth, when he went to take the command of the army, rendered it necessary that he should evince great reserve, and the utmost strictness of morals. “This was indispensably necessary,” said he, “to enable me to command men so much above me in point of age. I pursued a line of conduct truly irreproachable and exemplary. I proved myself a sort of Cato. I must have appeared such in the eyes of all. I was a philosopher and a sage.” In this character he appeared on the theatre of the world.

      Napoleon was in garrison at Valence when the Revolution broke out. At that time it was made a point of particular importance to induce the artillery-officers to emigrate; and the officers, on their part, were very much divided in opinion. Napoleon, who was thoroughly imbued with the notions of the age, possessing a natural instinct for great actions and a passion for national glory, espoused the cause of the Revolution; and his example influenced the majority of the regiment. He was an ardent patriot under the Constituent Assembly; but the Legislative Assembly marked a new period in his ideas and opinions.

      He was at Paris on the 21st of June, 1792, and witnessed the insurrection of the people of the Faubourgs, who traversed the garden of the Tuileries, and forced the palace. There were but 6000 men; a mere disorderly mob, whose language and dress proved them to belong to the very lowest class of society.

      Napoleon was also a witness of the events of the 10th of August, in which the assailants were neither higher in rank nor more formidable in number.

      In 1793, Napoleon was in Corsica, where he had a command in the National Guards. He opposed Paoli, as soon as he was led to suspect that the veteran, to whom he had hitherto been so much attached, entertained the design of betraying the island to the English. Therefore it is not true, as it has been generally reported, that Napoleon, or one of his family, was at one time in England, proposing to raise a Corsican regiment for the English service.

      The English and Paoli subdued the Corsican patriots, and burnt Ajaccio. The house of the Buonapartes was destroyed in the general conflagration, and the family was obliged to fly to the Continent. They fixed their abode at Marseilles, whence Napoleon proceeded to Paris. He arrived just at the moment when the federalists of Marseilles had surrendered Toulon to the English.

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