Page:Life of Napoleon Buonaparte.pdf/21

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

21

in his breasts apparently a disease to which he had a constitutional tendeney, as his father died of a similar malady. He bore the excruciating torture of his disorder, for six weeks with great firmness, generally keeping his eyes fixed on a portrait of his son, which was placed near his bed. From the beginning he refused medicine as useless; and the last words, uttered in a state of delirum, on the morning of his death, were "Mon fils!" soon afterwards, "tête d'armee!? and lastly " France." This event took place on the 5th May, 1821, in the fifty-second year of his age. He was interred, according to his own desire, near some willow trees and a spring of water, at a place called Haine's Valley, his funeral being attended by the highest military honours.

Thus terminated the eventful and dazzling career of Napoleon Buonaparte, one of those extraordinarily gifted individuals, who falling into a period and course of circumstances adapted to their peculiar, genius, exhibit the capacity of human nature in the highest point of view. It is useless to apologize for the imperfection of what must necessarily be a mere sketch, bit possibly a rapid view of personal, rather than of general events, may give a better off hand impression of a career like that of Buonaparte, than more minute and elaborate detail, passing as it does as rapidly across the mind, as he himself passed across his eventful existence. It will he obvious, even from this inadequate glance, that his distinguishing characteristics were decision, self-reliance, energy, and promptitude of action all soldierly qualities, but mixed up in him with a clearness of discernment, and a facility of calculating and combining physical results, which for at once the incentive and mainspring of prosperous enterprise. As a soldier,