The Merry Past 



In a notebook of observations on life in general, 

 the youthful Bonaparte wrote : 



" A people which devotes itself to gallantry must 

 lose that degree of energy necessary even to realise 

 that a patriot can exist." 



This opinion, however, later experience and the 

 exploits of his by no means prudish soldiery 

 appear to have modified, for the Emperor Napoleon 

 was generally extremely indifferent as to the morality 

 of the men under his command — when, for instance, 

 the Grenadiers, who accompanied him to Elba, 

 somewhat scandalised local susceptibilities by their 

 attentions to the ladies of Porto Ferrajo, the 

 Emperor refused to interfere, intimating that the 

 admiration of French Grenadiers for the fair sex 

 could not be repressed. 



When at the time of the Revolution, France, a 

 very volcano of patriotic frenzy, flew to arms to 

 defend its frontiers, the worship of Venus was carried 

 on with less hindrance or restriction than at any time 

 in the previous history of the country. 



The morality of Napoleon's soldiers was indeed 

 of a somewhat peculiar kind ; not a few made a 

 practice of marrying several wives. 



A conspicuous example of this was Jacques Nottier, 

 an invalid soldier of twenty-five, who had lost his 

 right leg in the service of the Republic, as he stated 

 on his appearance on the sixteenth Ventose, before 

 the criminal tribunal of the Department of the Seine, 

 accused of having married within the last eight months 

 three different women, Maria Dabaud, Maria Ber- 



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