"I am Joachim King of the Two Sicilies!"
He forgot that Louis XVI. had been King of France, the Duc d'Enghien grandson of the Grand Condé, and Napoleon arbiter of Europe: Death reckons as nothing what we may have been.
A priest is always a priest, say and do what we will; he comes and restores its failing strength to an intrepid heart. On the 13th of October 1815, Murat, after writing to his wife, was taken to a room in Pizzo Castle, renewing in his romantic person the brilliant or tragic adventures of the middle ages. Twelve soldiers, who perhaps had served under him, awaited him, drawn up in two lines. Murat saw them load their muskets, refused to let his eyes be bandaged, and himself, as an experienced captain, chose the post where the bullets could best hit him.
When aim had been taken at him, at the moment of the fire, he said:
"Men, spare the face; aim at my heart!"
He fell, holding in his hands the portraits of his wife and of his children: those portraits used before to adorn the hilt of his sword[465]. It was but one affair the more which the gallant man had settled with life.
The different manners of death of Napoleon and Murat preserve the characters of their lives.
Murat, so magnificent, was buried without state at Pizzo, in one of those Christian churches in whose charitable bosom all ashes are mercifully received.
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