XV.
DITHYRAMBIC LOVE.
I go back to M. Lévy's volume for a description of the epoch which followed.
It is a stage in Napoleon's life which it is very hard to understand, the existence of which many people have forgotten, and which is in contrast with the strange lawlessness, heartlessness, frigidity of temper which supreme power finally begat in Napoleon's character. We have extant his correspondence with his wife during his campaign in Italy; it is the correspondence of an impassioned boy with his first love. Its warmth of language, its hysterical joy, its strange despair, all its quick alternation of the liveliest and most acute feelings, stand, as it were, outside that stern man we know, with that impassive face in the midst of the wholesale carnage of the battle-field. The daring conspirator who was ready to stake his head in the fight for a crown—the man whose settled frown, cold and steady gaze, and imperious demeanour affright the bravest general into an awed silence—this man is to be seen in these letters falling on his knees, clasping his hands, tearing his hair, sobbing in the outbursts of jealous and almost tenderly submissive love. It is certainly one of the most curious contradictions between the outer demeanour, the general character, and
