It May Be That In The Future I Shall Be Better Known By Them Than
By My Victories." The Memoires
Of the shrewd observer to whom the words
were uttered, give us perhaps a more intimate acquaintance with the
Consular
Bonaparte than does any other single book; and it is impossible
to study them without deriving the impression that he was at this time
far more than a great soldier. He was, faults notwithstanding, a very
noble and high-minded man. It was easy for the savants of the Institute
to show him what a fine field for enterprise there was in the South Seas;
and though there is not a shred of evidence to indicate that, in
acquiescing in the proposition, he yielded to any other impulse than that
of securing for France the glory of discovery, there may yet have been at
the back of his mind, so to speak, the idea that if good fortune attended
the effort, the French nation might profit otherwise than in repute. To
say so much, however, is not to admit that there is any justification for
thinking that the acquisition of dominion furnished a direct motive for
the expedition. If Bonaparte entertained such a notion he kept it to
himself. There is not a trace of it in his correspondence, or in the
memoirs of those who were intimate with him at this period. One cannot
say what thoughts took shape at the back of a mind like Napoleon's, nor
how far he was looking ahead in anything that he did.
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