I shall not here enter into a detail of the events that preceded the
appearance of Bonaparte upon the political stage of Europe; if I
accomplish the design I have of writing the life of my father, I
will there relate what I have witnessed of the early part of the
revolution, whose influence has changed the fate of the whole
world. My object at present is only to retrace what relates to
myself in this vast picture; in casting from that narrow point of
view some general surveys over the whole, I flatter myself with
being frequently overlooked, in relating my own history.
The greatest grievance which the Emperor Napoleon has against me, is
the respect which I have always entertained for real liberty. These
sentiments have been in a manner transmitted to me as an
inheritance, and adopted as my own, ever since I have been able to
reflect on the lofty ideas from which they are derived, and the
noble actions which they inspire. The cruel scenes which have
dishonored the French revolution, proceeding only from tyranny under
popular forms, could not, it appears to me, do any injury to the
cause of liberty: at the most, we could only feel discouraged with
respect to France; but if that country had the misfortune not to
know how to possess that noblest of blessings, it ought not on that
account to be proscribed from the face of the earth. When the sun
disappears from the horizon of the Northern regions, the inhabitants
of those countries do not curse his rays, because they are still
shining upon others more favored by heaven.
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