"Sire," said Daru, "M. von Goethe has also translated Voltaire's 'Mohammed.'"
"That is not a good tragedy," said Napoleon. "Voltaire has sinned against history and the human heart. He has prostituted the character of Mohammed by petty intrigues. He makes a man, who revolutionized the world, act like an infamous criminal deserving the gallows. Let us rather speak of Goethe's own work—of the 'Sorrows of Werther.' I have read it many times, and it has always afforded me the highest enjoyment; it accompanied me to Egypt, and during my campaigns in Italy, and it is therefore but just that I should return thanks to the poet for the many pleasant hours he has afforded me."
"Sire, your majesty, at this moment, amply rewards me," said Goethe, bowing slightly.
"Your 'Werther' is indeed a work full of the most exalted ideas," added Napoleon; "it contains noble views of life, and depicts the weariness and disgust which all high-minded characters must feel on being forced to leave their sphere and come in contact with the gross world. You have described the sufferings of your hero with irresistible eloquence, and never, perhaps, has a poet made a more artistic analysis of love. Let me tell you, however, that you have not been entirely consistent in the work. You make your hero die not only of love, but of wounded ambition, and you mention expressly that the injustice he met with at the hands of his official superiors was a wound always bleeding, of which he suffered even in the presence of the lady whom he loved so passionately. That is not quite natural, and weakens in the mind of the reader the comprehension of that influence which love exerted on Werther. Why did you do so?"
Goethe looked almost in astonishment at the emperor; this unexpected censure, and the quick, categorical question, had equally surprised him, and momentarily disturbed the calmness of the poet. "Sire," he said, after a brief pause, "your majesty has found fault with something with which no one has reproached me heretofore, and I confess that your criticism has struck me. But it is just, and I deserve it. However, a poet may be pardoned for using an artifice which cannot easily be detected, in order to produce a certain effect that he believes he is unable to bring about in a simple and natural way."
Napoleon nodded assentingly. "Your 'Werther' is a drama of the heart, and there are none to be compared with it," he said. "After reading it, I am persuaded that it is your vocation to write in this style; for the tragic muse is the favorite companion of the greatest poet. Tragedy was at all times the school of great men. It is the duty of sovereigns to encourage, patronize, and reward it. In order to appreciate it correctly, we need not be poets ourselves; we only need knowledge of human nature, of life, and of a cultivated mind. Tragedy fires the heart, elevates the soul, and can or rather must create heroes. I am convinced that France is indebted to the works of Corneille for many of her greatest men. If he were living I would make a prince of him."
"Your majesty, by your words, has just adorned his memory with the coronet of a prince," said Goethe. "Corneille would assuredly have deserved it, for he was a poet in the noblest sense, and imbued with the ideas and principles of modern civilization. He never makes his heroes die in consequence of a decree of fate, but they always bear in themselves the germ of their ruin or death; it is a natural, rational death, not an artificial one."
"Let us say no more about the ancients and their fatalism," exclaimed Napoleon; "they belong to a darker age. Political supremacy is our modern fatalism, and our tragedies must be the school of politicians and statesmen. That is the highest summit which poets are able to reach. You, for instance, ought to write the death of Cæsar; it seems to me you could present a much more exalted view of it than Voltaire did. That might become the noblest task of your life. It ought to be proved to the world how happy and prosperous Cæsar would have made it if time had been given him to carry his comprehensive plans into effect. What do you think of it, M. von Goethe?"
"Sire," said Goethe, with a polite smile, "I should prefer to write the life and career of Cæsar, and in doing so I should not be at a loss for a model." His eyes met those of the emperor, and they well understood each other. Both of them smiled.
"You ought to go to Paris," exclaimed Napoleon. "I insist on your doing so. There you will find abundant matter for your muse."