Page:Daughters of Genius.djvu/280

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272 MADAME DE STAfiL AND NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. so stern. In one bulletin, sent from Potsdam, he holds this language : " The Emperor has been to see the tomb of the great Frederick. The remains of that great man are inclosed in a wooden coffin, covered with copper, placed in a tomb without ornaments, without trophies, without any objects which recall the great actions which he performed. The Emperor has made a present to the Hotel des Invalides, at Paris, of Frederick's sword, his order of the Black Eagle, his general's sash, as well as of the flags borne by his guard in the Seven Years' War." After thus despoiling Prussia of her most cherished and sacred treasures, he adds that the " old soldiers of the army will receive with a religious respect everything that belonged to one of the first captains of whom history preserves the remembrance." What a thief ! what an actor I How much did he respect those relics ? In the same bulletin he amuses the Parisians by telling a ridicu- lous story of Lord Morpeth, the British Ambassador, who, he says, was " near enough to the field of Jena to hear the cannons." When news was brought him that the battle was lost, though he was eighteen miles from the scene, " he took to his heels," says Napoleon, " crying out, ' I must not be taken.' He offered as much as sixty guineas for a horse ; got one at last, and saved Jiimself ." October the twenty-seventh, the Emperor, surrounded by his marshals, his magnificent staff, and the leading officers of his court, made what he styles his entree solennelle into Berlin, followed by the Imperial foot guard, and by a splendid body of horsemen and grenadiers. Alighting at the royal palace at three o'clock in the afternoon, after having received at the gates the keys of the city, he held a grand reception. He treated the city, in all respects, as the spoil of war ; paying his troops from the city treasury, taking all the wine from the