Lanterna Rally

Author: Victor Hugo

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2016-10-29

Total Pages: 694

ISBN-13: 9781334098871

Excerpt from The Works of Victor Hugo, Vol. 8: The History of a Crime, And, Napoleon the Little And by whom were these atrocities to be committed? By a Colossus? No; by a dwarf. People ridiculed the idea, and ceased to exclaim What a crime! To add What a farce! They considered that, after all, a wide range was required for the committal of heavy Offences, and crimes Of a particular nature are too vast for certain minds. To accomplish an eighteenth Brumaire, a man must date from an Arcola in the past, and give promise of an Austerlitz. To be a great scoundrel is not the province of every new-comer. People thus re ected: What kind of person is this Hortense's son, who has Strasbourg instead of Arcola, and with whom Boulogne takes the place of Austerlitz? He is a Frenchman, a Dutch man, a naturalized Swiss, a Bonaparte crossed by a Verhuell, chie y remarkable by the Simplicity of his imperial attitude; let him therefore beware, lest he who plucks the eagle's feather should find a goose's quill in his hand. The army will not give currency to this Bonaparte, for the effigy is far heavier weighted with lead than with gold. Surely, French soldiers in exchange for this false Napoleon's coin, will not take part in rebellion, enormities, massacres, crime, and treason. His villainous efforts would only prove futile, for not a regiment would rise. Then again, what can be his reason? His char acter has doubtless its dark side, but why pronounce him a thorough scoundrel. As he is incapable physically of great cutrages, why give him credit for planning them? Is he not in honour bound? Has he not said: 'in Europe no one doubts my word! Let us calm our fears.' We could in turn reply: Crimes are of greater or lesser magnitude. Caesar ranks with the first, and Mandrin with the latter. Cae sar crosses the Rubicon, Mandrin leaps the gutter. Some men will wisely interpose: Why judge a man so harshly, who has endured exile and misfortune? Exile but enlightens, misfortune acts as a corrective. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."