Note 42 — LETTER XI.
Reading edition
I must explain this exclamation. When Napoleon, after the defeat at Aspern, put off in a frail boat with a few followers for the Island of Lobau, General Tchernicheff, then a very young man, was by his side. He relates, that the Emperor sate profoundly absorbed in thought, spoke to nobody, and only now and then broke into the half-suppressed exclamation, ‘O monde, O monde!’ He might, perhaps, silently add, ‘tu m’échappes’—as a few years more verified.—Editor.