Napoleon And The Church Clock
Napoleon regretted his lost simpler, happier youth amid his later worldly glory.
It is said of Napoleon Bonaparte, that at that period of his life, when the consequences of his infatuated conduct had fully developed themselves in unforeseen reverses, being driven to the necessity of defending himself within his own kingdom with the shattered remnant of his army, he had taken up a position at Brienne, the very spot where he had received the rudiments of his education; when, unexpectedly, and while he was anxiously employed in a practical application of those military principles which first exercised the energies of his young mind in the college of Brienne, his attention was arrested by the sound of the church clock. The pomp of his imperial court, and even the glories of Marengo and of Austerlitz, faded for a moment from his regard, and almost from his recollection. Fixed for a while to the spot on which he stood, in motionless attention to the well-known sound, he at length gave utterance to his feelings; and condemned the tenor of all his subsequent life, by confessing that the hours, then brought back to his recollection, were happier than any he had experienced throughout the whole course of his tempestuous career.