266 MADAME DE STAEL AND NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. thousand such incidents as this : Brard, private of the Seventy-sixth, was about to have the thigh amputated ; he was marked for death. At the moment when the surgeon was about to begin, he stopped him, and said, ' I know that I shall not survive ; but no matter : one man the less will not hinder the Seventy-sixth from inarching. The first three ranks, fix bayonets ! Charge ! ' " Fancy, I say, the toiling peasantry of France played upon in this way by the greatest master in the art of dazzling a susceptible people that ever lived. Can you wonder that they should have come to regard war as the proper and natural employment of man, the delight and glory of generous minds, and hold peaceful industry in contempt ? I wish there were room to insert here a translation of a bulletin in which Napoleon communicates to France many details of the most brilliant of his victories — Austerlitz. It is artful in the highest degree, and exhibits Napoleon in a light so romantic and attract- ive, that it would conciliate a reader of the present day, if he were ignorant of the fact that every line of this long bulletin is of Napoleon's own composition. Here is one of its anecdotes : " An incident which does honor to the enemy must not be omitted. The officer in command of the artillery of the Russian Imperial Guard lost his guns in the battle. Meeting the Emperor, he said, 'Sire, have me shot; I have lost my guns ! ' The Emperor replied, 'Young man, I appreciate your tears. But one can be beaten by my army, and yet have some claims to glory ! ' ". The following passages are from the same bulletin : " Till late at night the Emperor rode over the field of battle superintending the removal of the wounded — spectacle of horror, if there ever was one s Mounted upon swift horses, he passed with the rapidity of light- ning, and nothing was more touching than to see those
