Memoirs of Napoleon — Volume 07 by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
page 59 of 105 (56%)
page 59 of 105 (56%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
barbarity to stain himself with the blood of a Bourbon, the Duc
d'Enghien. Religion might make me pardon an assassin, but the tyrant of my people must always be my enemy. In the present age it is more glorious to merit a sceptre than to possess one. Providence, for incomprehensible reasons, may condemn me to end my days in exile, but neither my contemporaries nor posterity shall ever have to say, that in the period of adversity I showed my self unworthy of occupying the throne of my ancestors. LOUIS The death of the Due d'Enghien was a horrible episode in the proceedings of the great trial which was then preparing, and which was speedily followed by the accession of Bonaparte to the Imperial dignity. It was not one of the least remarkable anomalies of the epoch to see the judgment by which criminal enterprises against the Republic were condemned pronounced in the name of the Emperor who had so evidently destroyed that Republic. This anomaly certainly was not removed by the subtlety, by the aid of which he at first declared himself Emperor of the Republic, as a preliminary to his proclaiming himself Emperor of the French. Setting aside the means, it must be acknowledged that it is impossible not to admire the genius of Bonaparte, his tenacity in advancing towards his object, and that adroit employment of suppleness and audacity which made him sometimes dare fortune, sometimes avoid difficulties which he found insurmountable, to arrive, not merely at the throne of Louis XVI., but at the reconstructed throne of Charlemagne. |
|