It Reflections. is impossible to pronounce on the effects of this great Revolution, since a sufficient time has not yet elapsed for us to form healthy judgments. We are accustomed to associate with some of the actors every thing that is vile and monstrous in human nature. But unmitigated monsters rarely appear on earth. The same men who excite our detestation, had they lived in quiet times might have been respected. Even Robespierre might have retained an honorable name to his death, as an upright judge. But the French mind was deranged. New ideas had turned the brains of enthusiasts. The triumph of the abstract principles of justice seemed more desirable than the preservation of human life. The sense of injury and wrong was too vivid to allow heated partisans to make allowances for the common infirmities of man. The enthusiasts in liberty could not see in Louis XVI. any thing but the emblem of tyranny in the worst form. They fancied that they could regenerate society by their gospel of social rights, and they overvalued the virtues of the people. But, above all, they over-estimated themselves, and placed too light a value on the imperishable principles of revealed religion; a religion which enjoins patience and humility, as well as encourages the spirit of liberty and progress. But whatever may have been their blunders and crimes, and however marked the providence of God in overruling them for the ultimate good of Europe, still, all contemplative men behold in the Revolution the retributive justice of the Almighty, in humiliating a proud family of princes, and punishing a vain and oppressive nobility for the evils they had inflicted on society.
References.—Alison's History of the French Revolution, marked by his English prejudices, heavy in style, and inaccurate in many of his facts, yet lofty, temperate, and profound. Thiers's History is more lively, and takes different views. Carlyle's work is extremely able, but the most difficult to read of all his works, in consequence of his affected and abominable style. Lamartine's History of the Girondists is sentimental, but pleasing and instructive. Mignet's History is also a standard. Lacretelle's Histoire de France, and the Memoirs of Mirabeau, Necker, and Robespierre should be read. Carlyle's Essays on Mirabeau and Danton are extremely able. Burke's Reflections should be read by all who wish to have the most vivid conception of the horrors of the awful event which he deprecated. The Annual Register should be consulted. For a general list of authors who have written on this period, see Alison's index of writers, prefixed to his great work, but which are too numerous to be mentioned here.[(Back to Contents)]
CHAPTER XXXI.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
Mr. Alison has found it necessary to devote ten large octavo volumes to the life and times of Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon Bonaparte; nor can the varied events connected with his brilliant career be satisfactorily described in fewer volumes. The limits of this work will not, however, permit a notice extending beyond a few pages. Who, then, even among those for whom this History is especially designed, will be satisfied with our brief review? But only a brief allusion to very great events can be made; for it is preposterous to attempt to condense the life of the greatest actor on the stage of real tragedy in a single chapter. And yet there is a uniformity in nearly all of the scenes in which he appears. The history of war is ever the same—the exhibition of excited passions, of restless ambition, of dazzling spectacles of strife, pomp, and glory. Pillage, oppression, misery, crime, despair, ruin, and death—such are the evils necessarily attendant on all war, even glorious war, when men fight for their homes, for their altars, or for great ideas. The details of war are exciting, but painful. We are most powerfully reminded of our degeneracy, of our misfortunes, of the Great Destroyer. The "Angel Death" appears before us, in grim terrors, punishing men for crimes. But while war is so awful, and attended with all the evils of which we can conceive, or which it is the doom of man to suffer, yet warriors are not necessarily the enemies of mankind. They are the instruments of the Almighty to scourge a wicked world, or to bring, out of disaster and suffering, great and permanent blessings to the human race.
Napoleon is contemplated by historians in both those lights. The English look upon him, generally, as an ambitious usurper, who aimed to erect a universal empire upon universal ruin; as an Alexander, a Cæsar, an Attila, a Charles XII. The French nation regard him almost as a deity, as a messenger of good, as a great conqueror, who fought for light and freedom. But he was not the worst or the best of warriors. Character of Napoleon. His extraordinary and astonishing energies were called into exercise by the circumstances of the times; and he, taking advantage of both ideas and circumstances, attempted to rear a majestic throne, and advance the glory of the country, of which he made himself the absolute ruler. His nature was not sanguinary, or cruel, or revengeful; but few conquerors have ever committed crimes on a greater scale, or were more unscrupulous in using any means, lawful or unlawful, to accomplish a great end. Napoleon had enlightened views, and wished to advance the real interests of the French nation, but not until he had climbed to the summit of power, and realized all those dreams which a most inordinate ambition had excited. He doubtless rescued his country from the dangers which menaced it from foreign invasion; but his conquests and his designs led to still greater combinations, and these, demanding for their support the united energies of Christendom, deluged the world with blood. Napoleon, to an extraordinary degree, realized the objects to which he had aspired; but these were not long enjoyed, and he was hurled from his throne of grandeur and of victory, to impress the world, which he mocked and despised, of the vanity of military glory and the dear-earned trophies of the battle field. No man was ever permitted by Providence to accomplish so much mischief, and yet never mortal had more admirers than he, and never were the opinions of the wise more divided in regard to the effects of his wars. A painful and sad recital may be made of the desolations he caused, so that Alaric, in comparison, would seem but a common robber, while, at the same time, a glorious eulogium might be justly made of the many benefits he conferred upon mankind. The good and the evil are ever combined in all great characters; but the evil and the good are combined in him in such vast proportions, that he seems either a monster of iniquity, or an object of endless admiration. There are some characters which the eye of the mind can survey at once, as the natural eye can take in the proportions of a small but singular edifice; but Napoleon was a genius and an actor of such wonderful greatness and majesty, both from his natural talents and the great events which he controlled, that he rises before us, when we contemplate him, like some vast pyramid or some majestic cathedral, which the eye can survey only in details. Our age is not sufficiently removed from the times in which he lived, we are too near the object of vision, to pronounce upon the general effect of his character, and only prejudiced or vain persons would attempt to do so. He must remain for generations simply an object of awe, of wonder, of dread, of admiration, of hatred, or of love.
Nor can we condense the events of his life any more than we can analyze his character and motives. We do not yet know their relative importance. In the progress of ages, some of them will stand out more beautiful and more remarkable, and some will be entirely lost sight of. Thousands of books will waste away as completely as if they were burned, like the Alexandrian library; and a future age may know no more of the details of Napoleon's battles than we now know of Alexander's marches. But the main facts can never be lost; something will remain, enough to "point a moral or adorn a tale." The object of all historical knowledge is moral wisdom, and this we may learn from narratives as brief as the stories of Joseph and Daniel, or the accounts which Tacitus has left us of the lives of the Roman tyrants.
Napoleon Early Days of Napoleon. Bonaparte was born in Corsica, the 15th of August, 1769, of respectable parents, and was early sent to a royal military school at Brienne. He was not distinguished for any attainments, except in mathematics; he was studious, reserved, and cold; he also exhibited an inflexible will, the great distinguishing quality of his mind. At the age of fourteen, in view of superior attainments, he was removed to the military school at Paris, and, at the age of seventeen, received his commission as second lieutenant in a regiment of artillery.
When the Revolution Early Services to the Republic. broke out, Toulon, one of the arsenals of France, took a more decided part in favor of the king and the constitution than either Marseilles or Lyons, and invited the support of the English and Spanish squadrons. The Committee of Public Safety resolved to subdue the city; and Bonaparte, even at that time a brigadier-general, with the command of the artillery at the siege, recommended a course which led to the capture of that important place.