Passing more calmly to another question:  “He was quite aware,” he said, “of the ambition of his generals; but it was diverted by war, and would never be sanctioned in its excesses by French soldiers, who were too proud of, and too much attached to their country.  That if war was dangerous, peace had also its dangers:  that in bringing back his armies into the interior, it would enclose and concentrate there too many daring interests and passions, which repose and their association would tend to ferment, and which he should no longer be able to keep within bounds:  that it was necessary to give free vent to all such aspirations; and that, after all, he dreaded them less without the empire than within it.”

He concluded thus:  “Do you dread the war, as endangering my life?  It was thus that, in the times of conspiracy, attempts were made to frighten me about Georges; he was said to be every where upon my track:  that wretched being was to fire at me.  Well! suppose he had!  He would at the utmost have killed my aide-de-camp:  but to kill me was impossible!  Had I at that time accomplished the decrees of fate?  I feel myself impelled towards a goal of which I am ignorant.  As soon as I shall have reached it, so soon shall I no longer be of service,—­an atom will then suffice to put me down; but till then, all human efforts can avail nothing against me.  Whether I am in Paris, or with the army, is, therefore, quite indifferent.  When my hour comes, a fever, or a fall from my horse in hunting, will kill me as effectually as a bullet:  our days are numbered.”

This opinion, useful as it may be in the moment of danger, is too apt to blind conquerors to the price at which the great results which they obtain are purchased.  They indulge a belief in pre-destination, either because they have experienced, more than other men, whatever is most unexpected in human destiny, or because it relieves their consciences of too heavy a load of responsibility.  It was like a return to the times of the crusades, when these words, it is the will of God, were considered a sufficient answer to all the objections of a prudent and pacific policy.

Indeed, the expedition of Napoleon into Russia bears a mournful resemblance to that of St. Louis into Egypt and Africa.  These invasions, the one undertaken for the interests of Heaven, the other for those of the earth, terminated in a similar manner; and these two great examples admonish the world, that the vast and profound calculations of this age of intelligence may be followed by the same results as the irregular impulses of religious frenzy in ages of ignorance and superstition.

In these two expeditions, however, there can be no comparison between their opportunities or their chances of success.  The last was indispensable to the completion of a great design on the point of being accomplished:  its object was not out of reach; the means for reaching it were not inadequate.  It may be, that the moment for its execution was ill chosen; that the progress of it was sometimes too precipitate, at other times unsteady; but on these points facts will speak sufficiently:  it is for them to decide.