to him. Indeed this marriage with the Empress Marie Louise was proposed in the council, discussed, decided, and signed within twenty-four hours; which fact can be attested by a great number of the council still alive. Many were of opinion that I should have married a Frenchwoman; and the arguments in favour of this proposition were so strong that I hesitated a moment. However, the court of Austria insinuated that if I refused to choose a princess from one of the reigning Houses of England, it would be a tacit declaration that I intended to overthrow them when an opportunity presented itself."

Speaking of men, Napoleon said, "You do not know men; they are difficult to understand when one wishes to be just; do they know themselves? do they explain themselves? The greater number of those who abandoned me, had I continued to be fortunate, would not have thought themselves capable of such conduct. There are the vices and virtues of circumstances; our last experiences are above all human power; and then I have been abandoned rather than betrayed. There has been more weakness about me than treachery; it is the denial of St. Peter, repentance and tears may be at the gate. Besides that, who in all history had more partizans and friends? Who was more popular and more beloved? Who ever left sharper and more ardent regrets? Kings and princes, my allies, have been faithful unto death. They have been taken away by the people in a mass; and those of my own who were around me were enveloped and deprived of their senses in an irresistible whirlwind. No; human nature could show itself more hideous, and I might have more to complain of."

"I have often asked myself the question whether I did for my unhappy people all that they had a right to expect; they did so much for me. History shall decide. What is very certain is, that I am far from shunning its verdict; I court it. Will that people ever know all that the night preceding my final decision cost me, that night of uncertainty and anguish? Two ways were left to me. I did right to take the one I did, friends and enemies, well intentioned and ill intentioned, all were against me. I was alone. It was time to give up. I did so, and once done it was done for ever; I am not for half measures. The other way called for a strange vigour. There were great criminals, and heavy punishments would have been necessary. Blood might flow,

and then who knows whither we should have been led? and what scenes might have been renewed? But if at this price I had saved the country, I was full of energy, but was I certain of success? Which of the crowd of fools surrounding me could I have persuaded that I was not working for myself, for my personal advantage? which of them should I have convinced that I was disinterested; that I only fought to save the country? Which of them would have believed all the dangers, all the misfortunes from which I sought to free them? I could see them, but as to the common herd they never saw them unless they weighed heavily on each. What might they have replied to that which was cried: Here he is again, the despot, the tyrant! The day after his oaths are made, he breaks them again! And who knows if in all these movements, this inextricable complication, I might not have perished by a French hand in this citizen conflict. And then what would have become of the nation in the eyes of all the world, and in the esteem of the remotest generations? for her

glory is to own me. I should not know how to have done so many things for her honour, her glory, without her, in spite of her. She would make me too great! I repeat it, history will decide."

"Bernadotte," said Napoleon, "showed himself ungrateful to me, who was the author of his elevation, but I cannot say that he betrayed me. He became Swedish in some manner, and never promised what he did not intend to perform. I can accuse him of ingratitude but not of treason. Neither Murat nor he would have declared against me had they known it would have cost me my throne. They desired to weaken my power, not to overthrow me entirely. The bravery of Murat was so great that the Cossacks were accustomed to relieve the feelings it produced in them, by cries of admiration. They could not help experiencing a sentiment of respect on seeing this man of a noble and imposing figure, advancing like an old knight, and performing similar prodigies of valour. Labédoyère was a young man animated with the noblest sentiments. He had the most sovereign contempt for a race surrounded by all that was most foreign to the manners and rights of the French, a race given up to a set of misérables, who, not to die of hunger, had vegetated for twenty-five years in low and degrading conditions. His attachment to me was quite enthusiastic, and he declared himself in my favour at the moment of the greatest danger."

Napoleon said to O'Meara when the latter was leaving St. Helena, "When you arrive in Europe, you will go yourself, or send some one to my brother Joseph. You will let him know that I wish him to give you the

You

packet containing the private and confidential letters,* that the emperors Alexander and Francis, the king of Prussia, and the other sovereigns of Europe addressed to me, and which I gave to him at Rochfort. will publish them to cover with shame those sovereigns, and to let the world see, the abject homage these vassals paid me when they asked favours, or begged me to leave them their thrones. When I was powerful and strong, they craved my protection and the honour of my alliance; they licked the dust under my feet. Now, they oppress me in my old age, they take away my wife and child. I beg you to do this for me, and if you hear any public calumnies against me while you have been here with me, and you can say, 'I know of my own knowledge that that is not true,' contradict them."

1819. The following trifling circumstance will serve to show how sensitive Napoleon was on the subject of the slightest intrusion at Longwood, and how little he was disposed to show any civility to Mr. Baxter. Mr. Baxter having been invited to dine at Longwood on the 8th of December, with Captain Nicholls and Dr. Verling, went there about 6 o'clock in the evening, in company with Major Power. They both went to look at the new building that was going on, and saw Napoleon at the window going and returning. A few days after, Count Montholon called on Captain Nicholls with the following message: "Tell the orderly officer that a few days ago I saw Dr. Baxter walking round my house, that I conceive his doing so an indelicate intrusion after

* Unfortunately, says O'Meara, all the efforts I made to obtain these important papers, on my return to Europe were unsuccessful.

the communication respecting that person, and the protestations I some time since made against receiving him as my medical attendant; and that I desire that the orderly officer will in future prevent Dr. Baxter from walking about my residence; and further, should Dr. Baxter think fit to make a bulletin of the state of my health in consequence, I protest against such proceedings."

Of the Saviour Napoleon said, in conversation with General Bertrand, "I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires, and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and all other religions whatsoever, the distance of infinity.

"To the authors of every other religion we can say, You are neither gods nor the agents of deity. You are but missionaries of falsehood, moulded from the same clay with the rest of mortals. You are made with all the passions and vices inseparable from them. Your temples and your priests proclaim your origin. Such will be the judgment, the cry of conscience of whoever examines the gods and the temples of paganism.

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'Paganism was never accepted as truth by the wise men of Greece, neither by Socrates, Pythagoras, Plato, Anaxagoras, nor Pericles. But, on the other side, the loftiest intellects, since the advent of Christianity have had faith, a living faith, a practical faith, in the mysteries and doctrines of the gospel; not only Bossuet and Fénelon, who were preachers, but Descartes and Newton, Leibnitz and Pascal, Corneille and Racine, Charlemagne and Louis XIV. Paganism is the work of man. One can here read but our imbecility. What do these gods, so