e end," replied the Princess, gayly.
"Napoleon did nothing at all. He did not even kick Volney, and his head
was that of an idiot."

General Lariviere felt that he should say something. He hurled this
phrase:

"Napoleon--his campaign of 1813 is much discussed."

The General wished to please Garain, and he had no other idea. However,
he succeeded, after an effort, in formulating a judgment:

"Napoleon committed faults; in his situation he should not have committed
any." And he stopped abruptly, very red.

Madame Martin asked:

"And you, Monsieur Vence, what do you think of Napoleon?"

"Madame, I have not much love for sword-bearers, and conquerors seem to
me to be dangerous fools. But in spite of everything, that figure of the
Emperor interests me as it interests the public. I find character and
life in it. There is no poem or novel that is worth the Memoirs of Saint
Helena, although it is written in ridiculous fashion. What I think of
Napoleon, if you wish to know, is that, made for glory, he had the
brilliant simplicity of the hero of an epic poem. A hero must be human.
Napoleon was human."

"Oh, oh!" every one exclaimed.

But Paul Vence continued:

"He was violent and frivolous; therefore profoundly human. I mean,
similar to everybody. He desired, with singular force, all that most men
esteem and desire. He had illusions, which he gave to the people. This
was his power and his weakness; it was his beauty. He believed in glory.
He had of life and of the world the same opinion as any one of his
grenadiers. He retained always the infantile gravity which finds pleasure
in playing with swords and drums, and the sort of innocence which makes
good military men. He esteemed force sincerely. He was a man among men,
the flesh of human flesh. He had not a thought that was not in action,
and all his actions were grand yet common. It is this vulgar grandeur
which makes heroes. And Napoleon is the perfect hero. His brain never
surpassed his hand--that hand, small and beautiful, which grasped the
world. He never had, for a moment, the least care for what he could not
reach."

"Then," said Garain, "according to you, he was not an intellectual
genius. I am of your opinion."

"Surely," continued Paul Vence, "he had enough genius to be brilliant in
the civil and military arena of the world. But he had not speculative
genius. That genius is another pair of sleeves, as Buffon says. We have a
collection of his writings and