MADAME DE STAEL AND NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 267 brave men recognize him. Some forgot their sufferings and said, ' Any way, is the victory perfectly assured ? ' Others said, ' I have suffered for eight hours, and have had no succor since the beginning of the battle ; but I have done my duty.' Others cried, ' You ought to be content with your soldiers to-day.' To every wounded soldier the Emperor left a guard, who caused him to be transported to the ambulances. Horrible to say, forty- eight hours after the battle there were still a great number of the Russian wounded who ,had not been attended to. All the French wounded had attention before night." No one can coolly read this passage in the original without discerning its fictitious character. First we have the Emperor, during several hours of the night {pendant plusieurs hevres de la nuit), going over the field of battle, and causing the wounded to be removed ; and at the end of the passage, we learn that all the French wounded had surgical attention before night (a,vant la nuit). It is in the night, too, that the Emperor " passes like a flash," and yet he hears the wounded soldiers utter the words quoted above. He loves to exhibit himself to the Parisians as the object of the envy and the admiration of crowned heads and other distinguished persons. He puts the following words into the mouth of a Russian Prince when he con- versed with one of the French generals : " ' Tell your master,' cried this Prince, ' that I am going home ; that he performed miracles yesterday ; that the battle has increased my admiration for him ; that he is the Predestined of Heaven ; that a hundred years must pass before my army equals his. ' " He also reports a conversation with the Emperor of Russia and the French General Savary. " ' Y ou were inferior to me in numbers,' said the
