[253] "Voltaire, in the character and conduct of his hero, has departed both from nature and history. He has degraded Mahomet, by making him descend to the lowest intrigues. He has represented a great man who changed the face of the world, acting like a scoundrel, worthy of the gallows. He has no less absurdly travestied the character of Omar, which he has drawn like that of a cut-throat in a melo-drama. Voltaire committed a fundamental error in attributing to intrigue that which was solely the result of opinion. Those who have wrought great changes in the world, never succeeded by gaining over chiefs: but always by exciting the multitude. The first is the resource of intrigue, and produces only secondary results: the second is the resort of genius, and transforms the face of the universe."—Napoleon, Las Cases, tom. ii., p. 80.
[254] Narrative, p. 234.
[255] "The sound of bells produced upon Napoleon a singular effect. When we were at Malmaison, and while walking in the avenue leading to Ruel, how often has the booming of the village bell broken off the most interesting conversations. He stopped, lest the moving of our feet might cause the loss of a tone in the sounds which charmed him. The influence, indeed, was so powerful, that his voice trembled with emotion while he said—'That recalls to me the first years I passed at Brienne.'"—Bourrienne, tom. iii., p. 222.
[256] See ante, vol. ii., p. [76].
[257] Las Cases, tom. ii., p. 325.
[258] Las Cases, tom. ii., p. 324.
[259] O'Meara, vol. i., p. 65.
[260] Captain Hall's Voyage to the Eastern Seas, vol. i., ch. vii., pp. 302, 319.
[261] See Appendix, [No. IV.], for one of the best and most authentic accounts of Napoleon's conversation and mode of reasoning.
[262] "See Dr. Baillie's inestimable book on Morbid Anatomy, pp. 141, 142."—S.