in the use she dared make of her charms; nothing could stop her, not even a malady attributed to her dissipation, and on account of which we have often seen her borne on a litter.'"
This, perhaps, is the most effective and deadliest blow at Napoleon in Taine's terrible indictment. If to this despot had been apportioned the female belongings of a man in, say, Ratcliff Highway, we should know what it implied. It would imply a family of brutal, predatory, foul instincts. The inheritors of such instincts would, in the case of the men, be the denizens of gaols; in the case of the women, would swell the ranks of prostitutes.
It is healthy, though not wholly comforting, to be reminded of the similarity of human nature through the vast differences of human rank and fortunes. To those who are fearless realists like Taine, there is a sombre joy in penetrating through trappings and robes to the naked animal beneath. Reflect for a moment that behind the flowing Imperial robes at the High Altar in Nôtre Dame, there is a nature, which in other circumstances would be clothed in the garment of a violent convict; that these beautiful, delicate, richly-bedizened women, whom Napoleon and chance have placed on thrones, are of the same mould as that brawling drab who is being haled to the prison, or lies, broken and beaten, in the bed of a hospital!
