At Arcola, I won the battle with twenty-five horsemen. I seized that
moment of lassitude, gave every man a trumpet, and gained the day with
this handful. You see that two armies are two bodies which meet, and
endeavor to frighten each other: a moment of panic occurs, and that
moment must be turned to advantage. When a man has been present in
many actions, he distinguishes that moment without difficulty; it is
as easy as casting up an addition."

This deputy of the nineteenth century added to his gifts a capacity
for speculation on general topics. He delighted in running through the
range of practical, of literary, and of abstract questions. His opinion
is always original, and to the purpose. On the voyage to Egypt, he
liked, after dinner, to fix on three or four persons to support a
proposition, and as many to oppose it. He gave a subject, and the
discussions turned on questions of religion, the different kinds of
government, and the art of war. One day, he asked, whether the planets
were inhabited? On another, what was the age of the world? Then he
proposed to consider the probability of the destruction of the globe,
either by water or by fire; at another time, the truth or fallacy of
presentiments, and the interpretation of dreams. He was very fond of
talking of religion. In 1806, he conversed with Fournier, bishop of
Montpelier, on matters of theology. There were two points on which
they could not agree, viz., that of hell, and that of salvation out
of the pale of the church. The Emperor told Josephine, that he disputed
like a devil on these two points, on which the bishop was inexorable.
To the philosophers he readily yielded all that was proved against
religion as the work of men and time; but he would not hear of
materialism. One fine night, on deck, amid a clatter of materialism,
Bonaparte pointed to the stars, and said, "You may talk as long as you
please, gentlemen, but who made all that?" He delighted in the