Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/25

Rh take the place of the man of business and the statesman. 'With him,' says a good observer, 'talking is a prime necessity; and, assuredly, among the highest prerogatives, he ranks first that of speaking without interruption.' Even at the Council of State he allows himself to run on, forgetting the business before the meeting; he starts off right and left with some digression or demonstration, some invective or other for two or three hours at a stretch, insisting over and over again, bent on convincing or prevailing, and ending by demanding of the others if he is not right, 'and in this case, never failing to find that all have yielded to the force of his argument.' On reflection he knows the value of an assent thus obtained, and, pointing to his chair, he observes: 'It must be admitted that in that seat one thinks with facility!' Nevertheless, he has enjoyed his intellectual exercise and given way to his passion, which controls him far more than he controls it."

is, however, one of the contradictions of this extraordinary character, that he has moments of intense and almost ingenuous sensibility. "He who has looked upon thousands of dying men, and has had thousands of men slaughtered, sobs after Wagram and after Bautzen at the couch of a dying comrade." "I saw him," says his valet,