This was the length the man carried it.
Meritorious to get so far. His compact, prompt, every way articulate
character is in itself perhaps small, compared with our great chaotic
inarticulate Cromwell's. Instead of "dumb Prophet struggling to speak," we
have a portentous mixture of the Quack withal! Hume's notion of the
Fanatic-Hypocrite, with such truth as it has, will apply much better to
Napoleon than it did to Cromwell, to Mahomet or the like,--where indeed
taken strictly it has hardly any truth at all. An element of blamable
ambition shows itself, from the first, in this man; gets the victory over
him at last, and involves him and his work in ruin.
"False as a bulletin" became a proverb in Napoleon's time. He makes what
excuse he could for it: that it was necessary to mislead the enemy, to
keep up his own men's courage, and so forth. On the whole, there are no
excuses. A man in no case has liberty to tell lies. It had been, in the
long-run, _better_ for Napoleon too if he had not told any.
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