En nu nog een deel van de scene tusschen Napoléon en The
Lady
„repeated failure as a would-be author, humiliation as a rebuffed
„time server, reproof and punishment as a incompetent and dishonest
„officer, an escape from dismissal from the service so narrow that
„if the emigration of the nobles had not raised the value of even the
„most rascally lieutenant to the famine price of a general he would
„have been swept contemptuously from the army these trials have
„ground his conceit out of him, and forced him to be self-sufficient
„and to understand that to such men as he is the world will give
„nothing that he cannot take from it by force. In this the world is
„not free from cowardice and follyfor Napoléon, as a merciless
„cannonader of political rubbish, is making himself usefulindeed, it
„is even now impossible to live in England without sometimes feeling
„how much that country lost in not being conquered by him as well
„as by Julius Caesar."
„NapoléonWhere did you pick up all these vulgar scruples this
„conscience of yours I took you for a lady an aristocrat. Was your
„grandfather a shopkeeper, pray
„Lady No he was an Englishman.
„Napoléon That accounts for it. The English are a nation of shop
keepers. Now I understand why you've beaten me.
„Lady Oh, I havnt beaten you. And I'm not English.
„NapoléonYes you are English to the backbone. Listen to
„me I will explain the English to you.
„Lady Do.
„Napoléon There are three sorts of people in the world, the low
„people, the middle people, and the high people. The low people and
„the high people are alike in one thingthey have no scruples, no
„morality. The low are beneath morality, the high above it. I am not
„afraid of either of them; for the low are unscrupulous without
„knowledge, so that they make an idol of me whilst the high are
„unscrupulous without purpose, so that they go down before my will.
„Look you I shall go over all the mobs and all the courts of Europe
„as a plough goes over a field. It is the middle people who are dange
rous they have both knowledge and purpose. But they, too, have
„their weak point. They are full of scruples chained hand and
„foot by their morality and respectability.
„LadyThen you will beat the Englishfor all shopkeepers are
„middle people.
„Napoléon No, because the English are a race apart. No English
man is too low to have scruples no Englishman is high enough to
„be free from their tyranny. But every Englichman is bom with a
„certain miraculous power that makes him master of the world. When
„he wants a thing, he never tells himself that he wants it. He waits
„patiently, until there comes into his mind, no one knows how, a
„burning conviction that it is his moral and religious duty to conquer
„those who have got the thing he wants. Then he becomes irresistible.
„Like the aristocrat, he does what pleases him and grabs what he
„covets like the shopkeeper, he pursues his purpose with the industry
„and steadfastness that come from strong religious conviction and
„deep sense of moral attitude. As the great champion of freedom and
„national independence, he conquers and annexes half the world, and
„calls it Colonization.
