"Too much tonic is worse than none. A man can stand ten or twenty grains of iron, but forty pounds is rather upsetting."
"True," acquiesced Napoleon. "Well, it was a great fight, and I have only one regret. I do wish you'd had a Kodak to take a few snap- shots of me at that Bridge of Lodi. I'd like to send some home to the family. It would have reminded brother Joseph of old times to see me dashing over that bridge, prodding its planks with my heels until it fairly creaked with pain. It would have made a good frontispiece for Bourrienne's book too. And now, my dear Lannes, what shall we do with ourselves for the next five days? Get out your Baedecker and let us see this imperial city of the Lombards."
"There's one matter we must arrange first," said Augereau; "we haven't any stable accommodations to speak of."
"What's the matter with the stalls at the opera-house?" suggested Napoleon. "As I told the troops the other day, it's the biggest theatre in the world. You ought to be able to stable the horses there and lodge the men in the boxes."
"The horses would look well sitting in orchestra chairs, wouldn't they?" said Augereau. "It's not feasible. As for the boxes, they're mostly held by subscribers."
"Then stable them in the picture-galleries," said the general. "It will be good discipline."
"The people will call that sacrilege," returned Augereau.
"Not if we remove the pictures," said Bonaparte. "We'll send the pictures to Paris."
Accordingly this was done, and the galleries of France were thereby much enriched. We mention these details at length, because Napoleon has been severely criticised for thus impoverishing Italy, as well as for his so-called contempt of art—a criticism which, in the face of this accurate version, must fall to the ground. The pictures were sent by him to Paris merely to preserve them, and, as he himself said, a propos of the famous Da Vinci, beneath which horses and men alike were quartered: "I'd have sent that too, but to do it I'd have had to send the whole chapel or scrape the picture off the wall. These Italians should rather thank than condemn me for leaving it where it was. Mine was not an army of destruction, but a Salvation Army of the highest type."
"You made mighty few converts for a Salvation Army," said Talleyrand, to whom this remark was addressed.