Liberty, and, consequently, between these acts of violence and the executions of generals accused of treason.[1]
C. There would never have been great acts of heroism in war, if each soldier, while acting like a hero, yet at the same time claimed to receive a reward proportionate to his deserts. When a column is sent to an assault, the men at the head know they are sent to their death, and that the glory of victory will be for those who passing over their dead bodies enter the enemy's position. However, they do not reflect on this injustice, but march forward.
The value of any army where the need of rewards makes itself actively felt, may be said to be on the decline. Officers who had served in the campaigns of the Revolution and of the Empire, but who had served under the direct orders of Napoleon only in the last years of their career, were amazed to see the fuss made about feats of arms which in the time of their youth would have passed unnoticed: "I have been overwhelmed with praise," said General Duhesne, "for things which would not have been noticed in the army of Sambre-et-Meuse."[2] This theatricality was carried by Murat to a grotesque degree, and historians have not taken enough notice of the responsibility of Napoleon for this degeneracy of the true warlike spirit. The extraordinary enthusiasm which had been the cause of so many prodigies of valour on the part of the men of 1794 was unknown to him; he believed that it was his function to measure all capacities, and to give
- ↑ P. Bureau has devoted a chapter of his book on the Contrat de Travail to an explanation of the reasons which justify boycotting of workmen who do not join their comrades in strikes; he thinks that these people merit their fate because they are notoriously inferior both in courage and as workmen. This seems to me very inadequate as an account of the reasons which, in the eyes of the working classes themselves, explain these acts of violence. The author takes up a much too intellectualist point of view.
- ↑ Lafaille, Mémoires sur les campagnes de Catalogne de 1808 à 1814, p. 336.
