LXXXII.—WASHINGTON AND BONAPARTE COMPARED.CHATEAUBRIAND.
CHATEAUBRIAND.
1. If Washington and Bonaparte are compared, man with man, the genius of the first will seem to take a less lofty flight than that of the second. Washington belongs not, like Bonaparte, to the race of Alexanders and Cæsars, who surpassed the ordinary stature of the human race; he creates no sentiment of astonishment; he is not seen contending, on a vast theatre, for glory, with the greatest captains and most powerful monarchs of the earth, he traverses[579]no seas; he hurries not from Memphis to Vienna, from Cadiz to Moscow; his work is a simple one of defending himself, with a handful of citizens, within the narrow limits of domestic hearths, in a land without a past and without celebrity.
2. He gains none of those battles which renew the bloody triumphs of Arbela[580]and Pharsalia;[581]he puts not his foot upon the necks of kings; he does not say to them, waiting on the vestibule of his palace,how often you come!and how you weary Attila![582]A certain spirit of silence envelops the actions of Washington: slow caution marks them all. One would say that he had ever the sentiment of his great mission with him, and that he feared to compromise it by rashness.
3. His own personal destiny seems not to have entered into the calculations of this hero of a new species;the destinies of his country alone occupied him, and he did not permit himself to risk or gamble with what did not belong to him. But from this profound obscurity what light breaks forth! Seek through the unknown forests where the sword of Washington glittered, and what will you find there? Tombs? No! A world. Washington has left the United States as a trophy of his field of battle.
4. Bonaparte possessed no single trait of this great American. His wars were all waged on an ancient continent, environed[583]by splendor and stunning with noise. His object was personal glory: his individual destiny filled all his thoughts. He seems to have known that his mission would be short: that the torrent that fell from such a height would quickly expend its force. He hurried forward to enjoy and to abuse his glory, as if aware that it was a fugitive dream of youth. Like the gods of Homer, four steps must suffice him to reach the end of the world.
5. Each of these men has been recompensed according to his works. Washington, after having raised a nation to independence, slept peacefully, as a retired magistrate, under his paternal roof, amid the regrets of his countrymen, and the veneration of all people, Bonaparte, having robbed a nation of its independence was hurled, a dethroned emperor, into exile, and the terrified earth hardly thought him secure enough under the custody of the ocean.
6. Even while exhausted and chained to a rock, he was struggling with death: Europe dared not lay down her arms, for fear of him. He died; and this event, published at the gate of the palace before which the conqueror had proclaimed so many funerals, hardlyarrested the passer-by. What, indeed, had citizens to weep for!
7. Washington and Bonaparte both arose out of the bosom of a republic. Both were born of liberty; the first was faithful to it, the second betrayed it. Their lot will be according to the different part they chose: very different with future generations. The name of Washington will spread with liberty from age to age, and mark the commencement of a new era for the human race: the name of Bonaparte will be pronounced also by distant generations, but no benedictions will be attached to it; it will serve on the contrary, as an authority to oppressors, great and petty of all times.
8. Washington represented completely the wants, the ideas, the state of enlightenment and opinions of his epoch. He seconded, instead of thwarting, the advancing movement: he willed that which he ought to have willed; the fulfilment of the mission to which he was called. Hence the coherence[584]and perpetuity of his work.
9. This man, who strikes the imagination so slightly, because he was natural, and kept within his just proportions, has confounded his history with that of his country: his glory is the common patrimony of increased civilization: his renown rises like one of those sanctuaries whence a stream, pure and inexhaustible, flows forth for ever, for the solace of the people.
10. Bonaparte might also have enriched the public domain. His action was on the nation the most civilized, the most intelligent, the most brave, the most brilliant of the earth. What a rank would he have occupied at present in the universe, if he had joined magnanimity to his other heroic qualities! if—Washingtonand Bonaparte at the same time—he had nominated liberty the inheritor of his glory!
11. But the disproportioned giant did not completely identify his destiny with that of his country. His genius belonged to modern, his ambition to ancient times. He did not perceive that the miracles of his life by far surpassed the value of a diadem, and that this gothic ornament but ill became him. Sometimes one might see him take a step with the age; at others he would retrograde toward the past. But whether he reascended the stream of time or followed its course, the prodigious force of his genius seemed to command a flow or a flux at his will.
12. Men were, in his eyes, only a means of power: there was no sympathy between their welfare and his own. He promised to liberate, and he enchained them: he separated himself from them, and they shrunk back from him. The kings of Egypt built their funeral pyramids, not amid fertile plains, but sterile sands. On a like site has Bonaparte constructed the monument of his renown.
[579]Travˊ-erses, crosses over.[580]Ar-beˊ-la, it was near Arbela that Alexander gained his great victory over the Persians.[581]Phar-saˊ-lia, it was here Julius Cæsar defeated Pompey.[582]At-tiˊ-la, a celebrated king of the Huns. He invaded Europe with an immense army, in 451. He crossed the Rhine and penetrated to the heart of Gaul, sacking and burning all the towns in his way. He was defeated by Ætius at Chalons.[583]En-viˊ-ron, to surround.[584]Co-herˊ-ence, consistency.
[579]Travˊ-erses, crosses over.
[579]Travˊ-erses, crosses over.
[580]Ar-beˊ-la, it was near Arbela that Alexander gained his great victory over the Persians.
[580]Ar-beˊ-la, it was near Arbela that Alexander gained his great victory over the Persians.
[581]Phar-saˊ-lia, it was here Julius Cæsar defeated Pompey.
[581]Phar-saˊ-lia, it was here Julius Cæsar defeated Pompey.
[582]At-tiˊ-la, a celebrated king of the Huns. He invaded Europe with an immense army, in 451. He crossed the Rhine and penetrated to the heart of Gaul, sacking and burning all the towns in his way. He was defeated by Ætius at Chalons.
[582]At-tiˊ-la, a celebrated king of the Huns. He invaded Europe with an immense army, in 451. He crossed the Rhine and penetrated to the heart of Gaul, sacking and burning all the towns in his way. He was defeated by Ætius at Chalons.
[583]En-viˊ-ron, to surround.
[583]En-viˊ-ron, to surround.
[584]Co-herˊ-ence, consistency.
[584]Co-herˊ-ence, consistency.