BONAPARTE,
NAPOLEON, I
(August 15, 1769–May 5, 1821), was the Emperor of France, 1804–15. He was first given command of the French army in Italy, 1796, where he turned near defeat by the Austrians into victory over Milan, Mantua, Sardinia and Naples, followed by the papacy suing for peace. He obtained the Directory’s support for conquering Egypt and India and, in 1799, he became the first consul in the French government formed after the Roman model. In 1802, Napoleon defeated the Austrians and was made consul for life. In 1804, he proclaimed himself emperor, and renewed the war with Italy, Germany and Switzerland.
It was during this time that Napoleon, needing money for his military campaigns, gave up the idea of a colony in America. In 1803, Napoleon sold the Louisiana Territory for $15,000,000.00 to the United States. This single purchase of nearly a million square miles, at about 2½ cents an acre, more than doubled the size of the United States of America.
Napoleon was defeated on the sea by the British Lord Horatio Nelson at Trafalgar, but commenced tremendous victories on land at Austerlitz, Jena and Friedland. In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia with over half a million men, but nearly 400,000 of them died in the brutal Russian winter. In 1813, he was defeated at Leipzig, forced to abdicate and exiled to Elba.
Napoleon escaped Elba in 1815 and returned to a hero’s welcome in Paris, where he led France for the famous Hundred Days in an attempt to regain his former power. On June 18, 1815, in one of the most decisive battles in history, Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo by the British Duke of Wellington. He was then captured and banished to the island of St. Helena, off the west coast of Africa, where he lived for the remainder of his life.
At Paris, January 23, 1814, Napoleon remarked:
France is invaded; I am leaving to take command of my troops, and, with God’s help and their valor, I hope soon to drive the enemy beyond the frontier.1650
In the writing On St. Helena, 1816, Napoleon is reported to have stated to General H.G. Bertrand while exiled on the island of St. Helena:
The Gospel possesses a secret virtue, a mysterious efficacy, a warmth which penetrates and soothes the heart. One finds in meditating upon it that which one experiences in contemplating the heavens.
The Gospel is not a book; it is a living being, with an action, a power, which invades everything that opposes its extension.
Behold it upon this table, this book surpassing all others (here the Emperor solemnly placed his hand upon it): I never omit to read it, and every day with new pleasure.
Nowhere is to be found such a series of beautiful ideas, and admirable moral maxims, which pass before us like the battalions of a celestial army. … The soul can never go astray with this book for its guide. …
Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and His will confounds me. Between Him and whoever else in the world there is no possible term of comparison; He is truly a Being by Himself. His ideas and His sentiments, the truth which He announces, His manner of convincing, are not explained either by human organization or by the nature of things.
Truth should embrace the universe. Such is Christianity, the only religion which destroys sectional prejudices, the only one which proclaims the unity and the absolute brotherhood of the whole human family, the only one which is purely spiritual; in fine, the only one which assigns to all, without distinction, for a true country, the bosom of the Creator, God.
Christ proved that He was the Son of the Eternal by His disregard of time. All His doctrines signify one only and the same thing—eternity. What a proof of the divinity of Christ! With an empire so absolute, he has but one single end—the spiritual melioration of individuals, the purity of the conscience, the union to that which is true, the holiness of the soul. …
Not only is our mind absorbed, it is controlled; and the soul can never go astray with this book for its guide. Once master of our spirit, the faithful Gospel loves us. God even is our friend, our father, and truly our God. The mother has no greater care for the infant whom she nurses. …
If you do not perceive that Jesus Christ is God, very well: then I did wrong to make you a general.1651
Napoleon’s statement, in another rendering from the French language, declares:
The Bible is no mere book, but a Living Creature, with a power that conquers all that oppose it.1652
Napoleon I, in a discussion with Count de Motholon, stated:
I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires, and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist.
There is between Christianity and whatever other religions the distance of infinity. … His religion is a revelation from an intelligence which certainly is not that of man.
The religion of Christ is a mystery which subsists by its own force, and proceeds from a mind which is not a human mind. We find in it a marked individuality, which originated a train of words and actions unknown before.
Jesus is not a philosopher, for His proofs are miracles, and from the first His disciples adored Him.
Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself founded empires; but upon what foundation did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force! But Jesus Christ founded His upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for Him.1653
Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte I stated:
All systems of morality are fine. The Gospel alone has exhibited a complete assemblage of the principles of morality, divested of all absurdity. It is not composed, like your creed, of a few commonplace sentences put into bad verse. Do you wish to see that which is really sublime? Repeat the Lord’s Prayer.1654
The nature of Christ’s existence is mysterious, I admit; … Reject it and the world is an inexplicable riddle; believe it and the history of our race is satisfactorily explained.1655
The loftiest intellects since the advent of Christianity have had faith, a practical faith, in the doctrines of the Gospel: … Descrates and Newton, Liebnitz and Pascal, Racine and Corneille, Charlemagne and Louis XIV.1656
Upon receiving a copy of Pierre Simon de Laplace’s book, Mecanique Celeste, Napoleon Bonaparte remarked:
You have written this huge book on the system of the world without once mentioning the author of the universe.1657
Napoleon remarked:
All things proclaim the existence of God.1658
Wordsworth, William (April 7, 1770–April 23, 1850), was one of the first English Romantic poets. He published his Lyrical Ballads in 1798; and Poems in Two Volumes in 1807. Other works include: The Excursion; The White Doe of Rylstone; Memorials of a Tour of the Continent; and Ecclesiastical Sketches. Greatly criticized at first, his works gradually became recognized, and in 1843, Queen Victoria appointed him Poet-Laureate of England:
Trust in the Saviour
But Thou art true, Incarnate Lord!
Who didst vouchsafe for man to die;
Thy smile is sure, Thy plighted Word
No charge can falsify.1659
Hymn for the Boatman
Jesus, bless our slender boat,
By the current swept along!
Loud its threatenings—let them not
Drown the music of a song
Breathed Thy mercy to implore,
Where the troubled waters roar.
Saviour, for our warning, seen
Bleeding on that precious rood;
If, while through the meadows green
Gently wound the peaceful flood,
We forget Thee, do not Thou
Disregard Thy suppliants now.1660
Translation of the Bible
But to outweigh all harm, the sacred Book,
In dusty sequestration wrapt too long,
Assumes the accents of our native tongue;
And he who guides the plow or wields the crook
With understanding spirit now may look
Upon her records, listen to her song,
And sift her laws—much wondering that the wrong
Which Faith hath suffered, Heaven could calmly brook.
Transcendent boon! Noblest that earthly king
Ever bestowed to equalize and bless
Under the weight of mortal wretchedness.1661
William Wordsworth stated:
The best part of a good man’s life is the little unremembered acts of kindness and love.1662