Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/160

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144
Napoleon.

with regard to the effect which they have sought to produce. To my mind, Bonaparte is far greater when he is considered as arriving when no one expects him or dreams of him, when he faces the disadvantages of a return bearing resemblance to a flight, when he triumphs over the prejudices which this return raises against him, and when in the space of a month he lays hand on every form of power. He is far greater, I maintain, when surrounded by all the obstacles he has triumphed over, than when an attempt is made to present him as the cynosure of all eyes, and having but to come forward to be lord of all."

XVIII.

NAPOLEON'S MOMENT OF FEAR.

It was while he was breaking down the Legislative Assembly, which stood between him and power, that Napoleon—as I have already told—displayed one of the few moments of terror in his whole lifetime. Curiously enough, his brother, from the sheer fact of being a Parliamentarian, was strong when the soldier was weak; and it was the courage of the Parliamentarian that saved the cowardice of the soldier.

"It is a known fact that on the 19th, at Saint-Cloud, the firmness of General Bonaparte, so often tested on the battle-field, was for a moment shaken by the vociferous yells with which he was