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The brief comparison between Kaiser William and Napoleon Bonaparte is that the one, like Frederick, the hero of Thomas Carlyle, is a shameless traitor to every act of human decency, and the other, in spite of what biassed writers have thought it their duty to say of him, was an unparalleled warrior-statesman, and his motives and actions were all on the side of God's humanity and good government.
Then came the fall of the greatest genius and most generous warrior-statesman who has ever figured in the world's history; he had staggered creation with his formidable power, and the instruments of his downfall flattered themselves that the day of Divine vengeance had arrived.
Charlemagne after he had subjugated to his power Germany, Italy, and a large part of Spain, seeing the inconvenience which the Government suffered from the non-delivery of important despatches from the governors of these distant parts of his dominion, caused Posts to be established at the expense of the people; but like the majority of the wise institutions of this warrior-statesman, shortly after his decease, they were discontinued, and till a long period after no traces are to be found of similar establishments.
None of Napoleon's companions in exile were admitted to such close intimacy with the illustrious warrior-statesman as was Count Montholon, not even Bertrand or Marchand. It was he who had won confidence by the most amazing attachment that one human being could give to another, and it was natural that the big soul of Napoleon should respond to what amounted to fanatical fidelity.
It had been the ambition of Montcalm to connect the French stations on Lake Erie with the forts of Louisiana; but that warrior-statesman in the West, as his kindred spirit, Dupleix, in the East, had fallen on the evil days of Louis XV., when valour and merit in the French colonies were sacrificed to the pleasures and parasites of Versailles. The natural result followed.
This learned warrior-statesman was also a poet, and but for the solitude of exile we should probably never have seen that side of this versatile nature. The lines which he writes to the portrait of his son are painfully touching. For some reason they were kept concealed, and found some time afterwards. Here they are, but the English translation does not do them justice:
There are gardens and fountains, a Sala terrena, said to be the largest in Europe; there are magnolia-trees as old as the palace; there is a bower of black old yew-trees screening the space where this warrior-statesman received the ambassadors of kings who sought alliance with him.
It had been the ambition of Montcalm to connect the French stations on Lake Erie with the forts of Louisiana; but that warrior-statesman in the West, as his kindred spirit, Dupleix, in the East, had fallen on the evil days of Louis XV., when valour and merit in the French colonies were sacrificed to the pleasures and parasites of Versailles. The natural result followed.
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