are ever at the end of their line, and, after each action, wait for
an impulse from abroad. Napoleon had been the first man of the world
if his ends had been purely public. As he is, he inspires confidence
and vigor by the extraordinary unity of his action. He is firm, sure,
self-denying, self-postponing, sacrificing everything to his
aim,--money, troops, generals, and his own safety also, to his aim;
not misled, like common adventurers, by the splendor of his own means.
"Incidents ought not to govern policy," he said, "but policy,
incidents." "To be hurried away by every event, is to have no political
system at all. His victories were only so many doors, and he never for
a moment lost sight of his way onward, in the dazzle and uproar of the
present circumstance. He knew what to do, and he flew to his mark. He
would shorten a straight line to come at his object. Horrible anecdotes
may, no doubt, be collected from his history, of the price at which
he bought his successes; but he must not therefore be set down as
cruel; but only as one who knew no impediment to his will; not
bloodthirsty, not cruel,--but woe to what thing or person stood in his
way! Not bloodthirsty, but not sparing of blood,--and pitiless. He saw
only the object: the obstacle must give way. "Sire, General Clarke
cannot combine with General Junot, for the dreadful fire of the Austrian
battery."--"Let him carry the battery."--"Sire, every regiment that
approaches the heavy artillery is sacrified: Sire, what orders?"--
"Forward, forward!" Seruzier, a colonel of artillery, gives, in his
"Military Memoirs," the following sketch of a scene after the battle
of Austerlitz.--"At the moment in which the Russian army was making
its retreat, painfully, but in good order, on the ice of the lake, the
Emperor Napoleon came riding at full speed toward the artillery. 'You
are losing time,' he cried; 'fire upon those masses; they must be
engulfed; fire upon the ice!' The order remained unexecuted for ten
minutes. In vain several officers and myself were placed on the slope