“My friend,” continued the Emperor, “I have sometimes an idea of quitting you, and this would not be very difficult; it is only necessary to create a little mental excitement, and I shall soon have escaped.—All will be over, and you can then quietly rejoin your families. This is the more easy, since my internal principles do not oppose any bar to it:—I am one of those who conceive that the pains of the other world were only imagined as a counterpoise to those inadequate allurements which are offered to us there. God can never have willed such a contradiction to his infinite goodness, especially for an act of this kind; and what is it after all, but wishing to return to him a little sooner?”
I remonstrated warmly against such notions. Poets and philosophers had said that it was a spectacle worthy of the Divinity, to see men struggling with fortune: reverses and constancy had their glory. Such a great and noble character as his could not descend to the level of vulgar minds; he who had governed us with so much glory, who had excited the admiration, and influenced the destinies, of the world, could not end like a desperate gamester or a disappointed lover. What would then become of all those who looked up to and placed their hopes in him? Would he thus abandon the field to his enemies? The anxiety shewn by the latter to drive him to it was surely sufficient to make him resist: who could tell the secrets of time, or dare assert what the future would produce? What might not happen from the mere change of a ministry, the death of a Prince, that of a confidant, the slightest passion, or the most trifling dispute?
“Some of these suggestions have their weight,” said the Emperor, “but what can we do in that desolate place?”—“Sire,” I replied, “we will live on the past: there is enough in it to satisfy us. Do we not enjoy the life of Cæsar and that of Alexander? We shall possess still more, you will re-peruse yourself, Sire!” “Be it so!” rejoined Napoleon; “we will write our Memoirs. Yes, we must be employed; for occupation is the scythe of Time. After all, a man ought to fulfil his destinies; this is my grand doctrine:[8] let mine also be accomplished.” Re-assuming from this instant an air of ease and even gaiety, he passed on to subjects totally unconnected with our situation.