The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1877-12-30
NAPOLEON Ill.
A Mastery Portrait Of Him by George Sand
P0stIlumOusIy Published.

A volume called Dernieres Pages"
containing several incomplete writings
left by the late George Sand, has just
been published by M. Calman Levy.
These pieces are probably the last lit
erary labor of the great writer, and their
admirable literary quality shows how
perfectly she preserved to the end her
control over the capacities which made
her work Of all kinds--literary, philo-
sophical and political so full at once Of
charm and Of power. They are, doubt
less, as Partisan journal calls them,
"MaterinuI qui eussent bien certGine-
ment pris place dams me azure noA-
:Dans les Boi ia "N N 'd Oliver"
Voyage chez M. Blaise," La!Blonde
Phoebe" and "Mon Grand Oncle,"
collected under the title, Impressions
ct Souvenirs. "Dans les Bots " begins
with lesson in botany, but ends, re-
markably enough, with a portrait Of
Napoleon Ill. 1t Is OF both literary and
historical importance, and we translate
nearly. the whole Of it. The author says
herself Of it: "This portrait has not
said, picked to pieces, recast In q
thousand ways. For myself. / believe it
not well done, but like. I have drawn
1t In my own mind while walking In the
woods, and recalling as whole details
which had struck me. The lagt conner
OF human beings Is very difficult to know
and to classify. The most difficult Of all
is he whose life has been the object Of
much feeling and Of public curiosity.
Neither hatred nor infatuation can
judge OF him." In the following mas
terly portrait one may readily see that
neither hatred nor enthusiasm has had
hun ia q, u1ryy, irff hu m a
OF the subtlest and soundest OF literary
jurists:
when / read yesterday in one OF the
journals that the sick man Of Chisel-
bursts condition was grave, felt that
he was dead at the very moment when
we read the dispatch. Had he not al
ready died at Sedan? Why did he not
kill himself there? was the cry on all
sides. Doubtless he lost there fine
opportunity Of dying, but the reason
why he lost it is very simple-a dead
man cannot rush on death. For three
years Napoleon Ill. had not existed.
Events moved him no more than the
voltaic pile moves q corpse. His feeble
death-bed leading towards Liberalism
were, In the situation In which he was
placed, illusions which the reasoning
faculty no longer controlled. The war
with Prussia was not even an illusion,
because he could not conceal the fact
that the spectre Of defeat had appeared
to him, and was leading him fatally to
his ruin. Alexandra Dumas fills said
that in surrendering himself he thought
he was saving his army and France.
This illusion, being mad one, is pos
sible only in a dying man, whose fleet
ing spirit Is no longer capable OF either
cowardice or heroism, and no longer
distinguishes between the dream and
the reality. AS to the rest, one VINO
studied near at hand, without inter-
ference Of any kind, the whole life Of
this fatal man, would, / believe, have
been convinced Of a thing novel to re-
late, but old in history, namely: that
certain historical personages have not
possessed an untrammeled judgment
| and have not existed in the sense which
| we apply to the word existence as con-
seriousness Of life. Such one has been
called the chimerical man. The word
| ished with chimeras, still juster il it de-
picts a being problematlcal and impos-
sible to analyZe.
HE played with all the world, himself
| included. He believed what he said,
but regarding himself as the sole means
of safety, as an instrument invested
with an inevitable mission, not feeling
the necessary physical and moral energy
in himself, but expecting to find it in
the arrangement of circumstances BY
fate, he adopted all ideas which people
chose to suggest to him under the forn
of oracles. Let us always be moving,
he said to himself; il such and sucf
thing is impossible, will pass to an
other, and il that is bad / shall learI
it from the result Assisted by the ex
ercise of absolute power, this illusion o
playing pitch and toss with events be
came monomania, and patient ant