Page:Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte 11th ed - Richard Whately (1874).djvu/51

 one,—if they have been so long really acting over and over again in their own persons such a drama, it must be allowed that they deserve to be characterized as they have been in the description given of certain European nations,—"An Englishman," it has been said, "is never happy but when he is miserable; a Scotchman is never at home but when he is abroad; an Irishman is never at peace but when he is fighting; a Spaniard is never at, liberty but when he is enslaved; and a Frenchman is never settled but when he is engaged in a revolution."

Besides the many strange and improbable circumstances in the history of Buonaparte that have been noticed in the foregoing pages, there are many others that have been omitted, two of which it may be worth while to advert to.

One of the most incredible is the received account of the persons known as the "Detenus." It is well known that a great number of English gentlemen passed many years, in the early part of the present century, abroad,—by their own account, in France. Their statement was, that, while travelling in that country for their amusement, as peaceable tourists, they were, on the sudden breaking out of a war, seized by this terrible Buonaparte, and kept prisoners for about twelve years, contrary to all the usages of civilized nations,—to all principles of justice, of humanity, of enlightened policy; many of them thus wasting in captivity the most important portion of their lives, and having all their prospects blighted.

Now, whether these persons were in reality exiles by choice, for the sake of keeping out of the way of creditors, or of enjoying the society of those they preferred to their own domestic circle, I do not venture to conjecture. But let the reader consider whether any conjecture can be more improbable than the statement actually made.

It is, indeed, credible that ambition may prompt an unscrupulous man to make the most enormous sacrifices of human life, and to perpetrate the most atrocious crimes, for the ad-