The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-05-18
JOSEPHINE.

That was fearful and sadly reminiscent
play which RHEA presented at the opera
house the last two evenings. The history
of the BoNAPARTE family is always inter
esting, whether it comes as a recital,
story, a scrap of history or drama; per-
haps in the last-named shape it is most in
teresting if well done, for the reason
among others, that it was dramatic career
and theatrical period when as Emperor of
the French and King of Sardinia, he took
steps to perpetuate his dynasty by "ban-
ishing Braganza and espousing Haps-
burg" Perhaps the most telling and
effective part of the play is where the
Mamaluke reads the stars and tells the man
of destiny what we who have succeeded
him have seen fulfilled-that though his
desire in one sense should be fulfilled,
in that he should become the
father of son and heir to his throne, there
should be no further fruitism. In this the
student of justice as well as history can see
the hand of living and just Providence.
NAPOLEON BoNAPARTE was beyond ques-
ton the most selfish ambitious and I'M
scrupulous despot that ever held the
destiny of a nation within his grasp. All
the finer sensibilities of man. all that we in
our best estate are prone to cherish, to ad-
nire, to emulate and to advance were I'M
known to him; 'the knew no motive but in
terest, acknowledged no criterion but sue
cess" The narrow span of this life con
tanned all that there was and might be; the
glory of the hour and the occasion was
| In &c L:
voice would be silent, his heart pulseless, his
eye no longer emit the CLEAN which caused
alike fear and admiration, and when all
that was worth the having would be in the
memory of the people who lived after him,
either came not or was dismissed upon the
coming.
NAPOLEON was greater in the sense of
mere political sway than either of the
C4EsARs or ALEXANDER the Great, because
living at time when similar methods by
reason of the worlds advanced civilization
counted for more and received admiration
in proportion to the peoples improved in
tellectual estate He was N less brutal
or barbGrous than any of his prototypes
and held the lives Of his fellow men If pos
sible in less esteem than they when the &C
complishment of an object required human
sacrifice. The murder of his best and mos,
efficient aid, Marshal NEY; the march tc
Russia over the Alps in the dead of winter
the burning of Moscow; the divorce of the
loved and loving JOSEPHINE all these
among a hundred other circumstances al
most as conspicuous go to show con
clusively that all the homage which
the sentimentalist of the present da,
pays to NAPOLEON BoNAPARTE is so mucl
in the direction of causing those who ar,
/ with us and will follow us to perpetual,
the error which we ought not in Justice t,
, ourselves and them transmit.
If there was anything in the cotem
poraneous history of the time more in
Y human and less in consonance with TIN
civilization and Christian sentiment O
Y even that bloody age than the Frencl
t Emper or's enforcement of his wife, it wa
the matter of the British government
Q treatment of their royal captive. 1t was
Y time and an occasion when England coul,
afford to be magnanimous and shoy
, the world an example of generosit,
: such as would have made her and he
! people exemplars of civilization and JUS
: Ice through all the coming ages But the,
' were not great enough to grasp the oppor
4 tunity and make the most of it; so that
, great many people who are disposed t
calmly and dispassionately consider tn