With his passions, and in spite of his errors, Napoleon is, taking him
all in all, the greatest warrior of modern times. He carried into battle
a stoical courage, a profoundly calculated tenacity, a mind fertile in
sudden inspirations, which by unhopedfor resources disconcerted the
plans of the enemy. Let us beware of attributing a long series of
success to the organic power of the masses which he set in motion. The
most experienced eye could scarcely discover in them any thing but
elements of disorder. Still less let it be said that he was a successful
captain because he was a mighty monarch. Of all his campaigns, the most
memorable are,--the campaign of the Adige, where the general of
yesterday, commanding an army by no means numerous, and at first badly
appointed, placed himself at once above Turenne and on a level with
Frederick; and the campaign in France in 1814, when, reduced to a
handful of harassed troops, he combated a force of ten times their
number. The last flashes of imperial lightning still dazzled the eyes of
our enemies; and it was a fine sight to see the bounds of the old lion
tracked, hunted down, beset, presenting a lively picture of the days of
his youth, when his powers developed themselves in the fields of
carnage.

Napoleon possessed, in an eminent degree, the faculties requisite for
the profession of arms; temperate and robust, watching and sleeping at
pleasure, appearing unawares where he was least expected, he did not
disregard details to which important results are sometimes attached. The
hand which had just traced rules for the government of many millions of
men would frequently rectify an incorrect statement of the situation of
a regiment, or write down whence two hundred conscripts were to be
obtained, and from what magazine their shoes were to be taken. A patient
and easy interlocutor, he was a home questioner, and he could listen--a
rare talent in the grandees of the earth. He carried with him into