and Napoleon's
greatness: "I do not know," their spokesman says, "from whence or from
whom he derives it, but there is a charm about that man indescribable
and irresistible. I am no admirer of his." Such persons always preface
any statement they are about to make by asserting their own
superiority in this way, and the officers, who, with others, had many
imaginary grievances against Napoleon, determined to empty their
overburdened souls to him. This gallant person emphasizes the fact
that he dislikes "the power to which he (Napoleon) had risen," yet he
cannot help confessing (evidently with reluctance) that there is
something in him which seems to speak that he is born to command. "We
went into his apartment to expostulate warmly with him, and not to
depart until our complaints were removed. But by his manner of
receiving us we were disarmed in a moment, and could not utter one
word of what we were going to say. He talked to us with an eloquence
peculiarly his own, and explained with clearness and precision the
importance of pursuing the line of conduct he had adopted, never
contradicting us in direct terms, but controverted our opinions so
astutely that we had not a single word to offer in reply, and retired
convinced that he was in the right and that we were manifestly in the
wrong." It is a common delusion with little men to believe that they
are big with wisdom and knowledge, even after they have been ravelled
to shreds by a man of real ability. The French Republican officers
were condescendingly candid in giving the First Consul a high
character, and he, in turn, made these self-assertive gentlemen feel
abashed in his presence, and sent them about their business without
having made any unnatural effort to prove that they had had an
interview with a majestic personality, who had made articulation
impossible to them. I might give thousands of testimonies, showing the
great power this superman had over other minds, from the highest
monarchical potentate to the humblest of his subjects. The former were
big with a combination of fear and envy. They would deign to grovel at
his feet, slaver compliments, and deluge him with adulation (if he
would have allowed them), and then proceed to stab him from behind in
the most cowardly fashion. There are always swarms of human insects
whose habits of life range between the humble supplicant and the
stinging, poisonous wasps.

It would have been better for the whole civilized wor