Note (Back to main text) — HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION OF THE 20th OF MARCH. (continued 4)
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No, Napoleon was not cruel, he was not sanguinary. If he were sometimes inexorable, it was because there are circumstances, in which the monarch must shut his heart to compassion, and leave the law free to act: but, if he knew how to punish, he was also capable of pardoning; and, at the moment when he gave up Georges[103] to the sword of justice, he spared the lives of Messrs. de Polignac and the Marquis de Rivière, whose courage and zeal he respected.