Note 197 — Chapter XCII
Reading edition
"'My friend,' said the Emperor to me, 'I have sometimes an idea of quitting you, and this would not be very difficult; it is only necessary to create a little mental excitement, and I shall soon have escaped. All will be over, and you can then quietly rejoin your families.' I remonstrated warmly against such notions. Poets and philosophers had said, that it was a spectacle worthy of the Divinity to see men struggling with fortune; reverses and constancy had their glory."—Las Cases, tom. i., p. 56.