GREAT MEN GOOD SLEEPERS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 186, 20 October 1876, Page 9

GREAT MEN GOOD SLEEPERS

(Prom " Memoirs of Count de Segur.") Napoleon at St. Helena censured what he called historical silliness (niaserie) on the part of historians who judged of all men and events. "It was wrong, for example, to expatiate on the calmness of Alexander, Coesar, and others, for having slept on the eve of a battle. There are none of our soldiers, or our generals, who have not repeated this marvel twenty times, and nearly all the heroism lay in the foregoing fatigue." M. De Segur describes him passing the night before Wagram, within reach of the enemy, on the alert, the horse bridled. "The Emperor was in the middle of his guard. A spread mantle served him for a tent. He slept under it scarcely three or four hours, but as profoundly as usual. It was necessary to wake him in the morning. This will excite no astonishment if we reflect that at these critical moments history shows us hardly any great men without sleep or appetite ; not that robust health is indispensable to these great actions, but rather because they require elevated and firm characters which maintain their calm." Conde was an excellent sleeper; so was the Duke of Wellington ; so was Pitt, till his health became fatally shattered ; and the power or habit quite as essential in civil as in military affairs, for without it both mind and body must prove unequal to a strain. One striking exception was Nelson, who, when everything was ready for the attack on Copenhagen, and he was only waiting for a wind, was with great difficulty persuaded to attempt an hour or two of rest. He allowed his cob to be placed on the deck and lay down on it, but never closed his eyes a moment, and at brief intervals during some hours kept anxiously inquiring about the wind. Napoleon or Wellington would have ordered himself to be called when the wind was favorable, and gone quietly to sleep. Yet Nelson was a hero in the brightest acceptation of the word. The fiery spirit, working out its way, Fretted the puny boclj to deciy. At Wagram there was a time when the French left was routed, and the artillery of Boudet taken. Intelligence of this disaster and of the threatening advance of the Austrian right to operate on the French rear being brought by one of Massena's aides-de-camp, the Emperor remained silent, impassive, as if he had heard nothing, with looks fixed on the opposite side, on Neusiedler and Davoust. It was not till he saw the fire of Davoust and his victorious right ■wing pass the tower of this village, that he turned to the aide-de-camp : " Boudet's artillery is taken. Well, it was there to be taken. Go and tell Massena that the battle is won." It was then far from won ; a desperate effort was required to redeem it, and he was obliged to order up his reserve, to which he never resorted except in the last emergency. Having given this order, confident in its execution by Lauriston, Davoust, and. d'Aboville, and sure of its effect — tranquilised, moreover, by the progress of Davoust, and our right wing — Napoleon alighted, and that which will astonish, but is certain, is that, calling Rustan (the Mamelouk), he caused his bearskin to be spread out, stretched himself upon it, and fell into a deep sleep. This sleep had already lasted nearly twenty minutes, and was beginning to create disquiet, when he awoke, without surprise, without eagerness to know what had come to pass during the absence of his consciousness. We could even see, by the direction of his look, and by the orders" which he redoubled, that he resumed, or rather followed, his train of thought as if it had undergone no interruption.