The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1907-10-11
HOW THE GREAT
HAVE DIED
NAPoLEoN's LAST THOUGHTS
WERE or THE PAsT-EAsY
FOR LOUIS XIV.
Great elizabeth Was Troubled About
Her acknowledgment
Was complaeent.

Montaigne has said somewhere in
his voluminous writings: Neither is
there anything of which am so in
ouisitive as the manner Of mems
deaths, their words. their bearing.
Were a writer OF books I would
teach men to die, would at the same
time teach them to live"
Death hols a solemn mystery In
store for each individual, and the man
ner in which 1t is met, especially by
those who have won fame and honor
on this earth, holds a potent fascina-
ton for all humanity, says writer in
the Washington Post.
The grim messenger had small fears
for the ancients, who looked upon this
world and the next in the calm spirit
Of their philosophy.
Anaxagrcas, the great Ionian philos-
opher and friend of Pericles, was ban
ished from Athens to die isolated from
the life and things he loved. but he
said proudly to those who would COM
fort the last hours of his life: 1T is
not | who have lost Athens; 1t is the
Athenians who have lost me-" His
last words were for the youthful fol-
lowers of his school of philosophy
and were: "Give the boys a holi-
day"
Cessare Borgia, the craftiest and
cruelest man of a corrupt age, hated
and feared by all and polluted by
every foul crime in the calendar, was
killed at a siege of the Castle of
Blanc, in 1907, and his dying words
we're: Il die unprepared"
Plato died thanking Providence and
the guiding fortune of his life, first.
that he was born a man and Grecian,
not brute or barbarian, and, second,
that he happened to live in the age
OF Socrates.
Sir Walter Raleigh, courier, explor-
er, and discoverer of tobacco, was con-
demned to the scaffold. He mounted
the steps firmly and with trace of his
equity grace ran his finger over the
keen edge of the executioner's ak,
and smilingly said: "Tis sharp
medicine, but sure remedy for all
ills
Louis XIV, called Louis LIE Grand,
the greatest Bourbon ruler was kindly
even in death. To the weeping cour-
tiers who waited and watched by his
royal bedside he said, reproachfully:
why weep We? Did We think should
live forever" And later murmured:
Il had thought dying had been harder"
Empress Josephine's last words and
prayers were for Napoleon. Gazing
intently upon his portrait, which she
carried ever with her, she prayed:
20, God, watch over Napoleon while
he remains in the desert Of this world.
Alas! though he hath committed great
faults, hath he not expiated by great
Just God, Thou who hast
looked into his heart and has seen
with how ardent desire for useful and
durable improvements he was AMI
mated, deign not to approve my last
petition, and may this image Of my
husband bear witness that my latest
wish, my latest prayer were for him
and my children, L'isle d'Elbe-Na-
Louise!"
Queen Elizabeth lay on the floor re-
rusing to be comforted, her attend
ants bracing her restless body with
pillows, the only service she would
permit. The great Queen was tor
.ured with doubts and fears as to who
would be her successor. To the sug-
yestion of one of her courtiers that
Lord Beauchamp, heir to the Suffolk
claim, should succeed to England's
hrone, she shrieked hoarsely with her
,ld-time temper: 81 win have no
son in my seat and died, cry
ng almost with her last anguished
breath. IAN my possessions for
moment of time!"
Maria Theresa, the great Austrian
Empress, in response to her physi-
ian's suggestion that she take sleep
ng draught, said haughtily: Il will
lot sleep; wish to meet death
wake" .l
Napoleon's last words were of his
ormer glories. "Tete d'armee,' he ,
nurmured over and over again.
Gen. Washington suffered much to-
,ard the last, and to his physician he I
aid: Il die hard, but am not afraid
D 60" Later, speaking with great !
ifiiculty, he said: Il am just going. !
lave me decently buried, but do not
It my body be put into the vault In