As he spoke these latter words he rose from his seat with a light elastic movement, and seemed altogether another person. When relieved from the turmoil of passion, he became gay, cheerful, and at the same time unaffected and natural. He made no effort to pose, nor did he seek to exalt and idealize himself, as he did afterward in the conversations at St. Helena, to meet some philosophic conception, or to fill up the portrait of himself which he desired to bequeath to posterity. He was far from any thing of this sort: in simple reality, he was himself, as it were, turned inside out. After a slight pause he advanced a step or two toward the Pope, who had not moved, and smiling, with an expression half-serious, half-ironical, proceeded in a new vein, in which were blended something of the elevated and the petty, of the pompous and the trivial, as was often his usage—all the time speaking with the volubility so often exhibited by this most versatile genius.
"Birth is every thing: those who appear on this world's stage poor and friendless, have a desperate struggle to maintain. According to the quality of their minds they turn to action or to self-destruction. When they have resolution to set to work, as I have done, they often play the winning game. A man must live; he must conquer a position, and make for himself an abiding-place. I have made mine as a cannon-ball does; so much the worse for those who stood in my way. Some are content with little, others never have enough: men eat according to their appetites, and I have a large one. Mark me, when I was at Toulon, I had not the price of a pair of epaulets; but instead of them I had on my shoulders my mother, and I know not how many brothers. All these are now tolerably well provided for; and as to Josephine, who, it was said, married me from pity, we are about to crown her in the very teeth of Raguedeau, her notary, who once told her that I had lost my commission and my sword, and was not worth a ducat; and faith he was not far wrong! But now, what is it that rises up in perspective before me? An imperial mantle and a crown. To me what are such things? a costume, a mere actor's costume. I shall wear them for the occasion, that's enough: then resuming my military frock, I'll get on horseback. On horseback said I?—yes, and perhaps for life; but scarcely shall I have taken up my new position when I shall run the risk of being pushed off my pedestal. Is that a state to be envied? There are but two classes of men—those who have something, and those who have nothing. The first take their rest, the others remain awake. As I perceived this when starting in the race of life, I have reached the goal thus early. I know of but two men who attained it after having set out at the age of forty, and they were Cromwell and Rousseau. Had the one had but a farm, and the other a few hundred francs and a domestic, they would neither have commanded, preached, nor written. There are various sorts of artists—in building, in forms, in colors, in phrases. I am an artist in battles; I had executed eighteen of what are called victories before the age of thirty-five. I have a right to be paid for my work, and if paid with a throne, it can not be called dear. But, after all, a throne, what is it? Two or three boards fashioned in this form or in that, and nailed together, with a strip of red velvet to cover them. By itself it is nothing; 'tis the man who sits upon it that makes its force. Still, throne or no throne, I shall follow my vocation: you shall see some more of my doings. You shall see all dynasties date from mine, 'parvenu' though I be; and elected, yes, elected like yourself, and chosen from the crowd. On that point, at all events, we may shake hands."
So saying, he advanced and held out his hand. The Pope did not decline the courtesy; but there was an evident constraint in his manner as he almost tremblingly reached to him the tips of his fingers. He seemed under the influence of a complex tide of emotion. He was moved somewhat, perhaps, by the tone of bonhomie that pervaded the latter remarks, and by the frankness of the advance which concluded them; but the dominant feeling was evidently of a sombre cast, arising from a reflection on his own position, and still more on that of so many Christian communities abandoned to the caprices of selfishness and hazard.
These movements of the inner man did not escape the scrutinizing glance of Bonaparte; a light and shadow passed rapidly across his face. He had carried one point—the coronation was tacitly conceded; the rest may be left to time. It was evident that, though not entirely without alloy, the feeling of satisfaction was uppermost as he strode from the room with all the brusquerie with which he had entered it.
[From Fraser's Magazine.]
GABRIELLE; OR, THE SISTERS.
Those who weep not here, shall weep eternally hereafter.
Ecclesiæ Græcæ Monumenta.
Dim voices haunt me from the past—for the dream of life is dreamed, and may now be revealed; the dreamer is loitering on the Bier Path leading to the green grass mounds, whence mouldering hands seem to point upward and say, "Look thy last on the blue skies, and come rest with us."