negotiate this so-called peace; it was a heavenly grace by which you
escaped sullying your name. To conclude, I have only one earthly wish:
it is that the ruin which we are cowardly enough to call a peace, may
become complete, that our political existence may end. I pray for the
calm of death."

Napoleon was about leaving Schoenbrunn, to return to France, when,
October 12, 1809, just as he was about to review his troops, he saw
approaching him a young German, of suspicious appearance, who was at
once arrested. This young man, whose name was Staaps, was the son of a
Protestant pastor at Erfurt, and under his coat was found a large, sharp
dagger, with which he said he had intended to kill the Emperor, in order
to deliver Germany. The cool, calm replies of this determined fanatic,
whom Napoleon himself examined, made a deep impression upon him. Might
not this young German be the forerunner of numberless volunteers who
were about to organize against France what they would consider a holy
war? At the sight of this youth, who gave calm expression to unrelenting
hatred, Napoleon--who did not venture to spare his life, although no
criminal act had been committed--was moved by a painful feeling in which
pity was mingled with surprise. He who had cost Germany such torrents
of blood and tears was singularly astonished when at last he saw that
Germany did not love him. Nothing is so repugnant to the great of the
earth, and especially to conquerors, as the thought of death,--death,
the only unconquerable foe! What, the first comer, a fool, a vulgar
fanatic, can with a kitchen knife lay low the greatest hero, the most
illustrious warrior, the mightiest king! At Regensberg, when he was
wounded for the first time since he had begun his military career, the
hero of so many battles perceived, and not without a pang, that he was
not invulnerable. Before the corpse of the brave Marshal Lannes, who had
had his two legs carried off by a cannon-ball at Esoling, he wrote very