The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-24

France, and had SO distended his '''empire"
that ten cold nights in Russia at the time
when his power seemed greatest caused his
ruin. This was Nelson's work, and well Napo-
leon knew it; for there is not in all these
volumes one allusion to the battle of Trafal-
gar. II is tellt tale silence. Amid the bulletins
of Austerlitz few except the master knew what
had happened upon the ocean; and except
himself perhaps no one comprehended its
importance. - .--
The great question of the reign of Nspo-
leon is: Which was to blame for breaking the
peace of Amiens, the English Government or
the French? This correspondence confirms
the constant assertion of French historians,
that the responsibility is to be laid at Eng
lands door. Bonaparte wanted peace that is
plain. Peace was his Interest," that is unde-
niable. England had agreed to evscuate
Malta, and when the time came refused to
give it up; that also is certain. England
should have frankly accepted Napoleon as
head of the French Government, and
forborne to give a pretext for breaking
the peace to a man so exquisitely skilled
in the use of deadly weapons. On the
other hand. what absurdity more complete
than for France to go to war with Great
Britain for little distant island in which
neither of them had any rights We cannot
dwell upon this point, although there is no
volume of the correspondence in which
Napoleons talents are more brilliantly ex-
hibited than in the one which contains his
letters and instructions previous to the decla-
ration of war in 1902. He had the advan-
tage of being technically in the right; and
England labored under the disadvantage
of putting forward a pretext, instead of
the real grievance. Napoleons matchless
skill in the use of deadly weapons was the
real grievance. The peace was broken, Goa
itions were formed and renewed, because
four crowned persons in Europe felt that they
were not safe while such man controlled the
resources and commanded the armies of
France.
The proper head of nation is sound
average man-one whom the average citizen
can recognize as a man and brother; one
who will keep the brilliant minister or great
general always in mind of the homely mate
rial with which governments have to deal;
one who will embody and represent the 0is
inerti9 of things. Bismark, firmly astride of
Prussia, would ride that great kingdom to the
Devil, as Bonaparte did France or Hamilton
might the United States, if average human
nature had not stood in his way, repre-
sented in the august person of George
Washington. It is mankind whom the head
of a government should represent. The
exceptionally gifted individual who serves
under him needs his restraining slowness and
caution, as much as the chief needs the light
and help of minds specially endowed.
OF all this Napoleon knew nothing.
His poor ambition was to reign. ''For
the Pope" said he, 'I am Charlemagne, be-
cause 1 reunite the crown of France to that
of the Lombards;" and he told his brother
Joseph, when he put him up as King of
Naples, that he wished his 'sblood" to reign
in Naples as long as in France, for "the
kingdom of Naples was necessary to him" !"
1t is at once ludicrous and affecting to see
such man so infatuated with the part he
| was playing, to read in his letters to kings,
eemperors, and popes such expressions as
''my house" 'the princes of my house."
''my capital" (meaning Paris), ''my good
city of Lyons, ''my armies, 'my fleet,
''my kingdom of italy" and to read elabo-
rate papers rearranging states and nations in
in which everything was considered except
the will of the people inhabiting them.
| Nothing will astound the reader of these
volumes more than the bulletins, dictated by
Napoleon on the field, and published in the
Moniteur by his command. 1t was those
bulletins that kept France in a state of de-
| lirium, and drew to distant fields of carnage
the flower of her youth and the annual harvest
of her educated talent. He was accustomed
to send every day or two from the seat of war,
when anything extraordinary had occurred,
chatty, anecdotical bulletins, designed
chiefly to keep up the martial frenzy of
the French; but he inserted also many
paragraphs intended to SOW dissension among
his enemies, knowing well that these docu-
ments would be closely scanned at every
court, club, and headquarters in Europe
Those anecdotes of the devotion of the troops
to the Emperor which figure is 80 many
biographies and histories, here they are,
where they originated, in the bulletins die
tated by Napoleon's mouth, corrected by his
hand, and published by his command in the
official newspaper of his empire, and now
given to the world as part of his correspond
ence by the head of his family!
For military men we must find room for a
curious order addressed to Marshal Berthier
at Boulogne, in 1905, Just as Napoleon was
4 about to begin that swift, silent march across
Europe which ended at Austerlitz. 1t shows
how little magic there was in his proceedings,
and by what homely, plodding labors the
most brilliant results are produced. "My
cousin" Che called all his marshals cousin },
81 desire you to have two portable boxes
made, with compartments-one for me and
the other for yourself. The compartments
will be arranged in such way that, with the
aid of written cards, we can know at glance
| the movements of all the Austrian troops,
regiment by regiment, battalion by battalion,
even to detachments of any considerable
magnitude. You will divide the compart-
ments into as many divisions as there are
Austrian armies, and you will reserve some
pigeon-holes for the troops which the
i Emperor of Germany has in Hungary, in
Bohemia and in the interior of his States.
Every fifteen days you will send me state
ment of the changes that have taken place
during the preceding fifteen days; availing
yourself for this purpose, not only OF the