Note 8 — INTRODUCTION.
Reading edition
The following is a document which the above circumstance contributes to render still more precious: it is an order of the day, issued by the First Consul to his guard, against suicide.
Order of the 22d Floreal, Year X.
“The Grenadier Gobain has committed suicide from love: he was in other respects an excellent soldier. This is the second incident of the same nature that has occurred in the corps within a month.
“The first Consul directs it to be inserted in the order-book of the Guard:—
“That a soldier ought to know how to vanquish the pangs and melancholy of the passions; that there is as much true courage in bearing up against mental sufferings with constancy, as in remaining firm on the wall of a battery.
“To give ourselves up to grief without resistance, or to kill ourselves to escape affliction, is to abandon the field of battle before the victory is gained.”