He had the virtues of
the masses of his constituents; he had also their vices. I am sorry
that the brilliant picture has its reverse. But that is the fatal
quality which we discover in our pursuit of wealth, that it is
treacherous, and is bought by the breaking or weakening of the
sentiments; and it is inevitable that we should find the same fact in
the history of this champion, who proposed to himself simply a brilliant
career, without any stipulation or scruple concerning the means.
Bonaparte was singularly destitute of generous sentiments. The
highest-placed individual in the most cultivated age and population
of the world,--he has not the merit of common truth and honesty. He
is unjust to his generals; egotistic, and monopolizing; meanly stealing
the credit of their great actions from Kellermann, from Bernadotte;
intriguing to involve his faithful Junot in hopeless bankruptcy, in
order to drive him to a distance from Paris, because the familiarity
of his manners offends the new pride of his throne. He is a boundless
liar. The official paper, his "Moniteurs," and all his bulletins, are
proverbs for saying what he wished to be believed; and worse,--he sat,
in his premature old age, in his lonely island, coldly falsifying
facts, and dates, and characters, and giving to history, a theatrical
eclat.
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