Here were two young
men--Moseses, as it were, saved from the bulrushes. Lost in the desert
from the period of their birth, and ignorant of the dissensions then
raging in Europe, they were unquestionably beyond the ordinary
operation of the law. This will never do, he probably said to himself;
the civilization which these two young men have come through so many
perils to seek ought not to appear to them, the moment they arrived in
Europe, in the form of spoliation and barbarism.
The name of this _extraordinary_ director of Domaine Extraordinaire
was M. de la Boullerie, and, when we fall in with the name of a really
good-hearted man, we delight to record it. He felt that the two young
men had been hardly dealt with, but he had not the power to order a
restitution of the property, now that the seizure had been made, and
sundry perquisities, of course, deducted by the excise officials.
Accordingly, he referred the matter to the Emperor, who commanded the
goods to be immediately restored intact. Napoleon, at the same time,
praised the functionary we have named for calling his attention to the
merits of the case, and thanked him for such an opportunity of
repairing an injustice.[I]
There are many such instances of generosity as the foregoing in the
career of the great Emperor--mild rays of the sun in the midst of
thunderstorms; sweet flowers blowing here and there, in the bosom of
the gigantic projects of his life--which many will esteem more highly
than his miracles of strategy and the renown of his battles.
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