b.

During the ball, Napoleon talked at great length with Goethe and Wieland. Speaking of ancient and modern literature, Napoleon touched on Shakespeare, whom he was too French to comprehend, and said to Goethe: »Je suis étonné qu'un grand esprit, comme vous, n'aime pas les genres tranchés.« Goethe might have replied that grands esprits have almost universally been the very reverse of tranchés in their tastes, but of course it was not for him to controvert the Emperor. After speaking magniloquently of tragedy, Napoleon told him he ought to write a [225] Death of Caesar, but in a grander style than the tragedy of Voltaire. »Ce travail pourrait devenir la principale tâche de votre vie. Dans cette tragédie il faudrait montrer au monde, comme César aurait pu faire le bonheur de l'humanité, si on lui avait laissé le temps d'executer ses vastes plans.« One cannot help thinking of Goethe's early scheme to write Julius Caesar, and how entirely it would have been opposed to the genre tranché so admired by Napoleon.

A proposition more acceptable than that of writing tragedies at his age, was that of accompanying Napoleon to Paris, »Venez à Paris! je l'exige de vous. Là vous trouverez des matières immenses pour vos créations poétiques.«