t for support
on them, is to build their hopes on sand."

There is a brilliant shrewdness now and then, in his contempt of the
showy exhibitors in public life. "The great orators," said he, "who rule
the assemblies by the brilliancy of their eloquence, are in general men
of the most mediocre talents. They should not be opposed in their own
way, for they have always more noisy words at command than you. In my
council there were men possessed of much more eloquence than I was, but
I always defeated them by this simple argument,--Two and two make four.

"My son will be obliged to allow the liberty of the press. This is a
necessity in the present day. My son ought to be a man of new ideas,
and of the cause which have made triumphant every where.

"Let my son often read and reflect on history: that is the only true
philosophy. Let him read and meditate on the wars of the great
Captains. That is the only means of rightly learning the science of
war."

In April, the signs of debility grew still more marked. On the 26th, at
four in the morning, after a calm night, he had what Montholon regards
as a dream, but what Napoleon evidently regarded as a vision. He said
with extraordinary emotion, "I have just seen my good Josephine, but she
would not embrace me; she disappeared at the moment when I was about to
take her in my arms; she was seated _there_; it seemed to me that I had
seen her yesterday evening; she is not changed--still the same, full of
devotion to me; she told me that we were about to see each other again,
never more to part. She assured me of that. Did you see her?"

Montholon attributed this scene to feverish excitement, gave him his
potion, and he fell asleep; but on awaking he again spoke of the Empress
Josephine.

It is difficult in speaking of dreams and actual visions, to know the
distinction. That the mind may be so perfectly acted upon during the
waking hours as to retain the impressions during sleep, is the
experience of every day. And yet we know so little of the means by which
truths may be communicated to the human spirit while the senses are
closed, that it would be unphilosophical to pronounce even upon those
fugitive thoughts as unreal. That Napoleon must have often reflected on
his selfish and cruel desertion of Josephine, it is perfectly natural to
conceive. That he may have bitterly regretted it, is equally natural,
for, from that day, his good fortune deserted him.