"Mine is a soul of marble which nothing can perturb, a heart inaccessible to common weaknesses. But you, Berthollet, do you understand sufficiently what life and death are? Have you explored their confines so far as to be able to affirm that they are without mystery? Are you sure that all apparitions are no more than the phantoms of a diseased brain? Can you explain all presentiments? General La Harpe had the stature and the heart of a Grenadier. His intelligence was in its element in battle. There it shone. At Fombio, for the first time, on the evening before his death, he was struck dumb, as one who is stunned, frozen by a strange and sudden fear. You deny apparitions. Monge, did you not meet Captain Aubelet in Italy?"
At this question, Monge tried to remember, then shook his head. No, he did not recollect Captain Aubelet.
"I had observed him at Toulon, where he won his epaulettes, like a hero of ancient Greece. He was as young, as handsome, as courageous as a soldier from Platea. Struck by his serious air, his clear-cut features and the look of wisdom on his young countenance, his superior officers had nicknamed him Minerva, and the Grenadiers also called him by that name, though they were ignorant of its significance.
"Captain Minerva!" cried Monge. "Why did you not call him that at first? Captain Minerva was killed beneath the walls of Mantua a few weeks before I arrived in that city. His death had made a great impression, because it was associated with marvellous happenings which were related to me, though I do not remember them exactly. All I recollect is that General Miollis ordered Captain Minerva's sword and gorget, crowned with laurels, to be carried at the head of the column which one feast day defiled in front of Virgil's grotto, as a tribute to the memory of the poet of heroes."
"Aubelet's," resumed Bonaparte, "was that perfectly calm courage which I have never observed in anyone save Bessières. His passions were of the noblest. And in everything he sacrificed himself. He had a brother in arms, Captain Demarteau, a few years his senior, whom he loved with all the affection of a great heart. Demarteau did not resemble his friend. Impulsive, passionate, equally eager for pleasure and for danger, he was always the life and soul of the camp. Aubelet was the proud devotee of duty, Demarteau the joyous lover of glory. The latter returned his comrade's affection. In those two friends the story of Nisus and Euryalus was re-enacted beneath our flag. The end, both of one and the other, was surrounded with extraordinary circumstances. They were told to me, Monge, as to you, but I paid better heed, although at that time my mind was occupied with greater affairs. I desired to take Mantua without delay and before a new Austrian army had time to enter Italy. Nevertheless I found time to read a report of the incidents which had preceded and followed Captain Aubelet's death. Certain of these incidents border on the miraculous. Their cause must either be assigned to unknown faculties, which man may acquire in unique moments, or to the intervention of an intelligence superior to ours."