From that moment forth, all was over; the Ogre of Corsica,-- the usurper,--the tyrant,--the monster who was the lover of his own sisters,--the actor who took lessons of Talma,--the poisoner of Jaffa,--the tiger,--Buonaparte,--all this vanished, and gave place in his mind to a vague and brilliant radiance in which shone, at an inaccessible height, the pale marble phantom of Caesar. The Emperor had been for his father only the well-beloved captain whom one admires, for whom one sacrifices one''s self; he was something more to Marius.
He was the predestined constructor of the French group, succeeding the Roman group in the domination of the universe. He was a prodigious architect, of a destruction, the continuer of Charlemagne, of Louis XI., of Henry IV., of Richelieu, of Louis XIV., and of the Committee of Public Safety, having his spots, no doubt, his faults, his crimes even, being a man, that is to say; but august in his faults, brilliant in his spots, powerful in his crime.
He was the predestined man, who had forced all nations to say: "The great nation!"
He was better than that, he was the very incarnation of France, conquering Europe by the sword which he grasped, and the world by the light which he shed.
Marius saw in Bonaparte the dazzling spectre which will always rise upon the frontier, and which will guard the future.