Note 388 — Chapter XIII

Buonaparte, on the 19th of August, addressed, from Cairo, the following letter to the widow of the unfortunate admiral:

"Your husband has been killed by a cannon-shot, while fighting on his deck. He died without pain, and by the best death, and that which is thought by soldiers most enviable. I am keenly sensible to your grief. The moment which severs us from the object we love is terrible; it insulates us from all the earth; it inflicts on the body the agonies of death; the faculties of the soul are annihilated, and its relations with the universe subsist only through the medium of a horrible dream, which alters every thing. Mankind appear colder and more selfish than they really are. In this situation we feel that, if nothing obliged us to live, it would be much best to die; but when, after this first thought, we press our children to our hearts, tears and tender feelings revive the sentiments of our nature, and we live for our offspring; yes, madam, see in this very moment, how they open your heart to melancholy: you will weep with them, you will bring them up from infancy—you will talk to them of their father, of your sorrow, of the loss which you and the Republic have sustained. After having once more attached your mind to the world by filial and maternal love, set some value on the friendship and lively regard which I shall always feel for the wife of my friend. Believe that there are a few men who deserve to be the hope of the afflicted, because they understand the poignancy of mental sufferings."