Show I THE GREATEST MEANEST OF MANKIND The Chicago Tribune editor has been perusing the diary of Dr D E OMcara who was the personal physician I physi-cian of Napoleon the Great at St Helena Hel-ena The Tribune says that on reading read-ing these pages the heroic figure which dominated Europe for ten years dwindles into the stature of a peevish fretful badtempered prematurely old man The allconquering emperor who played with the crowns of a continent quarreled with his servants and attendants attend-ants about the pattern of his dining room chairs Tiic migniy genius whose I godlike dignity overawed the world called Sir H Lowe the English Governor r Gov-ernor a liar a fool a spy a hangman because he was not allowed to subscribe sub-scribe for n certain newspaper Then as health began to fall he was fidgety about his condition One day It was catarrh another liver complaint Nothing Noth-ing suited him The income allowed him was loo small Ills sleeping ac cominodationfi were inadequate He wanted liberty to ride where he pleased on the island His house was an old j I f barn I We think It is pitiable to bring out any such stuff Shut the blood horse that wins tho Derby up In a box stall give him inadequate food no grooming no adequate exercise and he will kick the stable down and Is liable to snap the arm off from any one who goes In I where he is Trap and confine a full grown eagle In a narrow cage and he is Jiable to boat his life out against the bars Than for two years at least before be-fore Napoleon died he was ullllcted with a fatal illness that changes the whole nature of a man or woman But all that docs not discount the fact that when ho was himself he was lie master mas-ter genius of this modern age Of course all the time ho had some infirmities in-firmities He could not resist wanting to bos everything from the handling of an tinny or a State down to the trimmings of a cathedral for a fete day He had to quarrel with Josephine because she was utterly reckless In thee the-e pen llure of money and the treasury treas-ury of France would not have been sufficient suf-ficient to keep her going unless she had been restrained All the same In his prime he was able to carry an empire In his mind to wear out half a dozen secretaries a day when recording tho orders that ho dictated to frame a code and at the same time to handle 1000000 men in such a way that no mistakes were made When ho called three armies to meet In the neIghborhood neighbor-hood of Auslerlitz on a certain day I called them from three different parts of France the audacity of the attempt and the completeness of its fulfillment I have no counterpart In military work At the same time his wan a lawless soul which was never disciplined He was without morals he was without regard for the sufferings of men He simply lived to make for himself an everlasting fame and lie did not scruple scru-ple at the means he employed and ho carried that dominating genius through Europe for twenty years until he became be-came the very terror of the earth That he did not leave any permanent dynasty and that most of the work which he planned came finally to naught were natural because he nlanned it all in selfishness carried It all on in pride His thought was not to serve his country but to minister to his own ambitions and his affected love for country was almply that love which comes when a country is made to carry out a despots plans Those who believe there Is Il destiny that controls con-trols men see In Napoleon only a figure selected to tear from their roots wrongs that had boon planted for cen turles In Europe to wipe away the films from the eyes of men to prepare the world for a new adjustment of civ ilization and then to disappear Europe I i was vastly better because Napoleon I lived and because of the sorrows he I made and to accomplish that was probably why he was permitted to churn that part oC the continent as with an earthquake and to wade through blood for so long a time Even I in his day he was perfectly described by Byron who declared him the great I est and meanest of mankind |