Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon - Volume 11

pubOne.info present you this new edition. During the second day of the battle of Dresden, at the end of which the Emperor had the attack of fever I mentioned in the preceding chapter, the King of Naples, or rather Marshal Murat, performed prodigies of valor. Much has been said of this truly extraordinary prince; but only those who saw him personally could form a correct idea of him, and even they never knew him perfectly until they had seen him on a field of battle. There he seemed like those great actors who produce a complete illusion amid the fascinations of the stage, but in whom we no longer find the hero when we encounter them in private life. While at Paris I attended a representation of the death of 'Hector' by Luce de Lancival, and I could never afterwards hear the verses recited in which the author describes the effect produced on the Trojan army by the appearance of Achilles without thinking of Prince Murat; and it may be said without exaggeration that his presence produced exactly this effect the moment he showed himself in front of the Austrian lines