“Permit me, general, to remark that I did not ask you for all this.”
“But I, I ask you—”
“I think you are doing me the honor to take me for posterity.”
Bonaparte started, turned round, saw to whom he was speaking, and was silent.
“I only want,” said Morgan, with a dignity which surprised the man whom he addressed, “a yes or a no.”
“And why do you want that?”
“To know whether we must continue to war against you as an enemy, or fall at your feet as a savior.”
“War,” said Bonaparte, “war! Madmen, they who war with me! Do they not see that I am the elect of God?”
“Attila said the same thing.”
“Yes; but he was the elect of destruction; I, of the new era. The grass withered where he stepped; the harvest will ripen where I pass the plow. War? Tell me what has become of those who have made it against me? They lie upon the plains of Piedmont, of Lombardy and Cairo!”