Famous leaders among men

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

His soldiers, who till his death idolized him and would die for him, were soon to prove on scores of battle-fields that they never lacked courage.

This slight, boyish-looking general of twenty-six said to his veteran officers, "We must hurl ourselves on the foe like a thunderbolt, and smite like it."

And this was done. The first battle was on April 12, at Montenotte. The Austrians were routed, leaving their colors and cannon with the French, and three thousand dead and wounded. Napoleon afterwards said to the Emperor of Austria, "My title of nobility dates from the battle of Montenotte."

The battles of Millesimo and Mondovi quickly followed. On the heights of Monte Zemolo, Napoleon looked out upon the fertile plains of Italy, and exclaimed, "Hannibal crossed the Alps, but we have turned them!"

Then he addressed his enthusiastic soldiers: "In fifteen days," he said, "you have won six victories; captured twenty-one flags, fifty cannon, many fortified places; conquered the richest part of Piedmont; you have captured fifteen thousand prisoners, and killed and wounded ten thousand men. You lacked everything; you have gained battles without cannon; crossed rivers without bridges; made forced marches without shoes; often bivouacked without bread; the Republican phalanxes were alone capable of such extraordinary deeds. Soldiers, receive your due of thanks!"

Murat, his aide-de-camp, who afterwards married Napoleon's sister Caroline, and became King of Naples, was sent to Paris with the armistice proposed by the King of Sardinia, and Junot with the flags, which caused the greatest rejoicing. Fêtes were celebrated at the Champ de Mars, and Napoleon's name was honored as the conqueror of Italy.

Napoleon writes to his bride: "Your letters are the delight of my days, and my happy days are not very many. Junot is carrying twenty-two flags to Paris. You must come back with him; do you understand? It would be hopeless misery, an inconsolable grief, continual agony, if I should have the misfortune of seeing him come back alone, my adorable one.... You will be here, by my side, on my heart, in my arms! Take wings, come, come! But travel slowly; the way is long, bad, and tiresome."

Almost daily he writes to his wife: "My only Josephine, away from you, there is no happiness; away from you, the world is a desert, in which I stand alone, with no chance of tasting the delicious joy of pouring out my heart. You have robbed me of more than my soul; you are the sole thought of my life. If I am worn out by all the torment of events, and fear the issue; if men disgust me; if I am ready to curse life, I place my hand on my heart,—your image is beating there."

She is not well, and does not come to him, and again he writes: "My dear, do remember to tell me that you are certain that I love you more than can be imagined; ... that no hour passes that I do not think of you; that it has never entered my mind to think of any other woman; ... that you, as I see you, as you are, can please me and absorb my whole soul; that you have wholly filled it; that my heart has no corner that you do not see, no thoughts that are not subordinate to you; that my strength, my arms, my intelligence, are all yours; ... and that the day when you shall have changed, or shall have ceased to live, will be the day of my death; that nature, the earth, is beautiful, in my eyes, only because you live on it."

General Marmont says in his memoirs: "Bonaparte, however occupied he may have been with his greatness, the interests intrusted to him, and with his future, had, nevertheless, time to devote to feelings of another sort; he was continually thinking of his wife.... He often spoke to me of her, and of his love, with all the frankness, fire, and illusion of a very young man.... During a trip we made together at this time, to inspect the places in Piedmont that had fallen into our hands, one morning, at Tortona, the glass in front of his wife's portrait, which he always carried with him, broke in his hands. He grew frightfully pale, and suffered the keenest alarm."