Then Wieland goes on to relate what the conversation was. Napoleon "preferred the Romans to the Greeks. The eternal squabbles of their petty republics were not calculated to give birth to anything grand, whereas the Romans were always occupied with great things, and it was owing to this they raised up the Colossus which bestrode the world.... He was fond only of serious poetry, the pathetic and vigorous writers, and above all, the tragic poets."
Wieland had been put so much at his ease (so he says) that he ventured to ask how it was that the public worship Napoleon had restored in France was not more philosophical and in harmony with the spirit of the times. "My dear Wieland," was the reply, "religion is not meant for philosophers! they have no faith either in me or my priests. As to those who do believe, it would be difficult to give them, or to leave them, too much of the marvellous. If I had to frame a religion for philosophers, it would be just the reverse of that of the credulous part of mankind."[13]
Müller, the Swiss historian's private interview with him at this period is quite remarkable, and shows what a vast knowledge and conception of things the Emperor had. Nothing shows more clearly his own plan of regulating and guiding the affairs of the universe for the benefit of all. He tells Müller that he should complete his history of Switzerland, that even the more recent times had their interest. Then he switched from the Swiss to the old Greek constitutions and history; to the theory of constitutions; to the complete diversity of those in Asia, and the causes of this diversity in the climate, polygamy, the opposite characters of the Arabian and the Tartar races, the peculiar value of European culture, and the progress of Freedom since the sixteenth century; how everything was linked together, and in the inscrutable guidance of an invisible hand; how he himself had become great through his enemies; the great Confederation of Nations, the idea of which Henri IV. had; the foundation of all religion and its necessity; that man could not bear clear truth and required to be kept in order; admitting the possibility, however, of a more happy condition, if the numerous feuds ceased which were occasioned by too complicated Constitutions (such as the German) and the intolerable burden suffered by States from excessive armies.
These opinions clearly mark the guiding motives of Napoleon's attempts to enforce upon different nations uniformity of the institutions and customs. "I opposed him occasionally," says Müller, "and he entered into discussion. Quite impartially and truly, as before God, I must say that the variety of his knowledge, the acuteness of his observations, the solidity of his understanding (not dazzling wit), his grand and comprehensive views, filled me with astonishment, and his manner of speaking to me with love for him. By his genius and his disinterested goodness, he has also conquered me."[14] The remarkable testimony of Wieland and Müller, both men of distinction, is of more than ordinary value, seeing that they were not his countrymen, but on the side of those who waged war against him. Müller admits that he conquered him, and the world must admit that he is gradually, but surely, conquering it in spite of the colossal libels that have been spoken and written of him for the ostensible purpose of vindicating the Puritans and making him appear as the Spoliator and Antichrist whose thirst for blood, so that he might attain glory, was an inexhaustible craze in him. To them he is the Ogre that staggers the power of belief, and yet he defies the whole world to prove that he ever declared war or committed a single crime during the whole carnival of warfare that drenched Europe in human blood.
Up to the present, the world has lamentably failed to do anything of the sort. His opponents, libellers, and progeny of his mean executioners, are all losing ground, and he is gaining everywhere. There is an unseen hand at work revealing the awful truth. This dignified, calm, unassuming man, while surrounded by a crowd of Kings and Princes, who were competing with each other to do him homage and show their devotion, startles them by telling a story of when he was "a simple Lieutenant in the 2nd Company of Artillery." Possibly some of his guests were observed to be putting on airs that were always distasteful to the Emperor, and this was his scornful way of rebuking them. Or it might be that he wished to take the opportunity of informing Europe that he had no desire to conceal his humble beginning, though at that time he was recognised first man in it. Historians, when he was at the height of his power, ransacked musty archives assiduously to find out and prove that he had royal blood in him. They professed to have discovered that he was connected with the princely family of Treviso, and the comical way in which he contemptuously brushed aside this fulsome flattery must have lacerated the pride of courtiers who sought favours by such methods.
Bearing on the royal blood idea, Gourgaud in his Journal relates that the Emperor told him the following stories:—
"At one time in my reign there was a disposition to make out that I was descended from the Man in the Iron Mask. The Governor of Pignerol was named Bompars. They said he had married his daughter to his mysterious prisoner, the brother of Louis XIV., and had sent the pair to Corsica under the name of 'Bonaparte,'" and then with fine humour he adds:—"I had only to say the word and everybody would have believed the fable."
He never forgot that he was Napoleon, hence never said the word.
His insincere father-in-law has been industriously searching for royal blood too, and this is what his son-in-law says of him:—
"When I was about to marry Marie Louise, her father the Emperor sent me a box of papers intended to prove that I was descended from the Dukes of Florence. I burst out laughing, and said to Metternich, 'Do you suppose I am going to waste my time over such foolishness? Suppose it were true, what good would it do me? The Dukes of Florence were inferior in rank to the Emperors of Germany. I will not place myself beneath my father-in-law. I think that as I am, I am as good as he. My nobility dates from Monte Notte. Return him these papers.' Metternich was very much amused."