It Was
While Pondering His Masterstroke, And Deliberating On The Choice Of The
Path Across The Alps That Was To
Lead to it, that Bonaparte gave his
approval; while elaborating a scheme to overwhelm the armies of Austria
in an
Abyss of carnage, that he expressed the wish that, as the
expedition would come in contact with ignorant savages, care should be
taken to make it appear that the French met them as "friends and
benefactors."
It may here be parenthetically remarked that it does not make us think
more favourably of Freycinet that when, in 1824, he issued a new edition
of the Voyage de Decouvertes, he omitted all Peron's references to
Napoleon's interest in the expedition, and his direction that when
savages were met the French should appear among them "comme des amis et
des bienfaiteurs."* (* Peron, 1 10.) While Peron tells us that this
laudable wish was personally expressed by the First Consul, Freycinet* (*
1 74, in the 1824 edition.) altered the phrase to "le gouvernement
voulut," etc. He had absolutely no justification for doing so. The reader
of the second edition of the book had a right to expect that he was in
possession of the original text, save for the correction of incidental
errors. But in 1824 Napoleon was dead, a Bourbon reigned in France, and
Freycinet was the servant of the monarchy to which he owed the command of
the expedition of 1817. The suppression of Napoleon's name and the record
of his actions from Peron's text, was a puerile piece of servility.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 155 of 299
Words from 42917 to 43175
of 83218
