Page 391 - Third Book of Reading Lessons

390 THIRD BOOK OF
4. The whole continent trembled at beholding the audacity of his designs, and the miracle of their ex­ ecution. Skepticism bowed to the prodigies of his pei- rmance ; romance assumed the air of history ; nor was there aught too incredible r belief, or too nci l for expectation, when the world saw a sub­ altern of Corsica wavin_g his imperial ag over her most ancient capitals. All the visions of antiquity became commonplaces in his contemplation ; kings were his people-nations were his outposts ; and he disposed of courts, and crowns, and camps, and churches, and cabinets, as if they were titular digni­ taries of the chess-board !-Amid all these changes, he stood immutable as adamant.
5. It mattered little whether in the eld or in the drawing-room-with the mob or the levee-wearing the Jacobin bonnet or the iron crown-banishing a Braganza, or espousing a I apsburg-dictating peace on a raft to the Czar of Russia, or contemplating de­ at at the gallows of Leipsig-he was still the same military despot!
6. In this wonder l combination, his a ectations of literature must not be omitted. The jailer of the press, he a ected the patronage of letters-the pro­ scriber of books, he encouraged philosophy-the per­ secutor of authors and the murderer of printers, he yet pretended to be the protector of learning! the assassin of Palm, the silencer of De Stael, and the denouncer of Kotzebue, he was the iend of David, the bene ctor of De Lilte, and sent his academic prize to the philosopher of England.
7. Such a medley of contradictions, and at the same time such an individual consistency, were never united in the same character.- royalist-