Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/26

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10
Napoleon.

"weep while eating his breakfast, after coming from Marshal Lannes' bedside; big tears rolled down his cheeks, and fell on his plate."

"It is not alone the physical sensation, the sight of a bleeding, mangled body, which thus moves him acutely and deeply; for a word, a simple idea, stings and penetrates almost as far. Before the emotion of Dandolo, who pleads for Venice his country, which is sold to Austria, he is agitated and his eyes moisten. Speaking of the capitulation of Baylen, at a full meeting of the Council of State, his voice trembles, 'and he gives way to his grief, his eyes even filling with tears.' In 1806, setting out for the army and on taking leave of Josephine, he has a nervous attack, which is so severe as to bring on vomiting. 'We had to make him sit down.' says an eye-witness, 'and swallow some orange water. He shed tears, and this lasted a quarter of an hour.'" The same nervous crisis came on in 1808, when he was deciding on the divorce. "He tosses about a whole night, and laments like a woman. He melts and embraces Josephine; he is weaker than she is. 'My poor Josephine, I can never leave you!' Folding her in his arms, he declares that she shall not quit him. He abandons himself wholly to the sensation of the moment; she must undress at once, and lie beside him, and he weeps over her; 'literally,' she says, 'he soaked the bed with his tears.'"