“My extreme youth when I took command of the army of Italy,” Napoleon remarked, “made it necessary for me to evince great reserve of manner, and the utmost severity of morals. This was indispensable to enable me to sustain authority over men so greatly superior in age and experience. I pursued a line of conduct in the highest degree irreproachable and exemplary. In spotless morality I was a Cato, and must have appeared such to all. I was a philosopher and a sage. My supremacy could be retained only by proving myself a better man than any other in the army. Had I yielded to human weaknesses I should have lost my power.”
Napoleon sent the celebrated picture of St. Jerome from the Duke of Parma’s gallery to the Museum at Paris. The duke, to save his work of art, offered Napoleon two hundred thousand dollars, which the conqueror refused to take, saying: “The sum which he offers will be soon spent; but the possession of such a masterpiece at Paris will adorn that capital for ages, and give birth to similar exertions of genius.”
“Different matters are arranged in my head,” said Napoleon, “as in drawers. I open one drawer and close another as I wish. I have never been kept awake by an involuntary pre-occupation of the mind. If I desire repose I shut up all the drawers, and sleep. I have always slept when I wanted rest, and almost always at will.”
While at Milan, Napoleon had just mounted his horse one morning, when a dragoon, bearing important dispatches, presented himself before him. Napoleon gave a verbal answer and ordered the courier to take it back with all speed.
“I have no horse,” the man answered. “I rode mine so hard that it fell dead at your palace gates.”
Napoleon alighted. “Take mine,” he said.