136 ONE THOUSAND FAMOUS THINGS
Ten Mistakes a Day
I BELIEVE it is pretty well acknowledged that I am the best general
in Europe, yet I make ten mistakes a day. ^ Ten, he repeated,
holding up his fingers. Conversations of Napoleon
The Value of Five Minutes
THE reason I beat the Austrians is that they did not know the value
of five minutes. Napoleon
Our Affair
NAPOLEON TO A BxiTiss AMBASSADOR.- I will make war on you,
Ambassador: That, Sire, is your affair.
Napoleon.' I will annihilate you.
Ambassador; That, Sire, is our affair,
The Fallen Conqueror
A VICTIM to the factions which distract my country, and to the
enmity of the greatest Powers of Europe, I have terminated my
political career, and I corne, like Themistocles, to throw myself upon
the hospitality of the British people.
I put myself under the protection of their laws, which I claim from
your Royal Highness, as the most powerful, the most constant, and
the most generous of my enemies. Napoleon to the Prince
Regent after Waterloo
Is This the Man of Thousand Thrones ?
npis done—but yesterday a king !
JL And armed with kings to strive—
And now thou art a nameless thing :
So abject—yet alive !
Is this the man of thousand thrones,
Who strewed our earth with hostile bones.
And can he thus survive ?
Since he, miscalled the Morning Star,
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.
Lord Byron
The Conqueror
Do you know what amazes me more than anything else I The
impotence of force to organise anything. There are only two
powers in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run
the sword will always be conquered by the spirit. Napoleon