He found in the kitchen a jar of honey that he had overlooked, and he
resolved to use a part of it for breakfast. Europeans did not seem able
to live without jam or honey in the mornings, and he would follow the
custom. Not much was left in the other rooms, besides some old articles
of clothing, including two or three blue blouses of the kind worn by
French peasants or workmen, but on one of the walls he saw an excellent
engraving of the young Napoleon, conqueror of Italy.
It showed him, horseback, on a high road looking down upon troops in
battle, Castiglione or Rivoli, perhaps, his face thin and gaunt, his
hair long and cut squarely across his forehead, the eyes deep, burning
and unfathomable. It was so thoroughly alive that he believed it must be
a reproduction of some great painting. He stood a long time, fascinated
by this picture of the young republican general who rose like a meteor
over Europe and who changed the world.
John, like nearly all young men, viewed the Napoleonic cycle with a
certain awe and wonder. A student, he had considered Napoleon the great
democratic champion and mainly in the right as far as Austerlitz. Then
swollen ambition had ruined everything and, in his opinion, another
swollen ambition, though for far less cause, was now bringing equal
disaster upon Europe. A belief in one's infallibility might come from
achievement or birth, but only the former could win any respect from
thinking men.
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