No errant outcast of a lawless isle, Mocker of heaven and earth, with vows and prayers, Comes thy confiding offspring to beguile, And rivet to his wrist the chain he wears. diers the whole way. Some stood erect, some reclined a little, some had laid their arms beside them, some clasped them; all were dead. Several of these had slept in that position, but the greater part had been placed so, to leave the more room, and not a few, from every troop and detachment, took their voluntary station amongst them. The barbarians, who at other seasons rush into battle with loud cries, rarely did so. Skins covered not their bodies only but their faces, and, such was the intensity of cold, they reluctantly gave vent, from amidst the spoils they had taken, to this first and most natural expression of their vengeance. Their spears, although often of soft wood, as the beech, the birch, the pine, remained unbroken, while the sword and sabre of the adversary cracked like ice. Feeble from inanition, inert from weariness, and somnolent from the iciness that enthralled them, they sank into forgetfulness with the Cossacks in pursuit and coming down upon them, and even while they could yet discern, for they looked more frequently to that quarter, the more fortunate of their comrades marching home. The gay and lively Frenchman, to whom war had been sport and pastime, was now reduced to such apathy, that, in the midst of some kind speech which a friend was to communicate to those he loved the most tenderly, he paused from rigid drowsiness, and bade the messenger adieu. Some, it is reported (and what is unnatural is, in such extremity, not incredible) closed their eyes and threw down their muskets, while they could use them still, not from hope nor from fear, but part from indignation at their general, whose retreats had always been followed by the total ruin of his army; and part, remembering with what brave nations they had once fought gloriously, from the impossibility of defeating or resisting so barbarous and obscure an enemy. Britain speaks now .. her thunder thou hast heard.. "Defender and passionate lover of thy country," cried Kleber, "thou art less unfortunate than thy auguries. Enthusiastic Englishman, to which of thy conquests have ever been imparted the benefits of thy laws? Thy governors have not even communicated their language to their vassals. Nelson and Sydney are illustrious names: the vilest have often been preferred to them, and severely have they been punished for the importunity of their valour. We Frenchmen have undergone much but throughout the whole territory of France, throughout the range of all her new dominions, not a single man of abilities has been neglected. Remember this, ye who triumph in Ye who dread our example, speak plainly; is not this among the examples ye are the least inclined to follow?... Call my staff, and a file of soldiers. our excesses. "Gentlemen, he who lies under the pyramid, Napoleon moved on, surrounded by what guards were left to him, thinking more of Paris than of Moscow, more of the conscripts he could enroll than of the veterans he had left behind him. seems to have possessed a vacant mind and full heart, qualities unfit for a spy. Indeed he was not one. He was the friend and companion of that Sydney Smith who did all the mischief at Toulon, when Hood and Elliot fled from the city, and who lately, you must well remember, broke some of our pipes before Acre...a ceremony which gave us to understand, without the formalities of diplomacy, that the Grand-Signor declined the honour of our company to take our coffee with him at Constantinople." Then turning to the file of soldiers, "A body lies under the Great Pyramid: go, bury it six feet deep. If there is any man among you capable of writing a good epitaph, and such as the brave owe to the brave, he shall have my authority to carve it with his knife upon the Great Pyramid, and his name may be brought back to me." "Allow me the honour," said a lieutenant; "I fly to obey." Perhaps," replied the commander in chief, "it may not be amiss to know the character, the adventures, or at least the name". "No matter, no matter, my general." "Take them, however," said Kleber, holding a copy, " and all try your wits." L 146 GENERAL KLEBER, &c. "General," said Menou, smiling," you never gave a command more certain to be executed... What a blockhead was that king, whoever he was, who built so enormous a monument for a wandering Englishman!" The name of Bonaparte (what no writer has remarked) seems to be derived from Bon-reparte, now called San Gennasio di buon riposo, a village under Samminiato, in which town the family resided afterwards. The name of Bon-reparte is preserved by Benedict of Peterborough in his Life of Henry II of England, wherein are described the halts of Philippe Auguste...per Castellum Florentinum, et per Seint Denys de Bon-reparte, &c. Although I did my utmost in pursuing this tyrant to death, recommending and insisting on nothing less, yet I acknowledge that I am sorry he is dead. Seeing what I see, I would preserve him as the countryman preserves the larger ant, to consume the smaller, more numerous and more active in mischief. Europe wants a fierce housedog to keep in check those impudent little thieves, who molest and plunder her in all directions, shouting and laughing at her slowness and imbecility. |