Quotes
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Napoléon : Negotiations? Who said anything about negotiations? One negotiates when one doesn't share the same point of view, but you and I already agree about everything, do we not?
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Maréchal Jean Lannes : I was waiting to see you before I go.
Napoléon : Go? Where do you think you're going without any legs, you damn fool?
Maréchal Jean Lannes : To hell. That's where people go when they've done what I've done. The slaughter, the horrors. You will know what hell is like too, when you end up alone after you've sent all your friends to their death. They will abandon you. They can't go on, you know. No one dares tell you this, but I do. I am here because of you. And even though I'm dying, it doesn't stop me from loving you. So stop this war. Put an end to this madness.
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Tsar Alexandre I : I hate the way that the English preach to the whole world. If there's one nation that has a right to preach, it is France. Your revolution was a great step toward the freedom of mankind.
Napoléon : Including freedom for Russia's 10 million serfs?
Tsar Alexandre I : Sire, you can't reform everything.
Napoléon : Perhaps not all at once.
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Charles Talleyrand : Now you cast aspersions on my honor?
Napoléon : Honor? You? You have no honor. You're a scoundrel.
Charles Talleyrand : Sire, when a point is exaggerated, it becomes meaningless.
Napoléon : That's what you have just become. Meaningless.
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Napoléon : How do you know what's on his mind? I'm closer to Alexander than you are. He's like a brother to me now.
Charles Talleyrand : Cain was a brother to Abel, sire.
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Napoléon : It always comes down to a bit of luck in the end.
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Tsar Alexandre I : I've commissioned this painting for you. I've determined that you should have a souvenir of our discussion in the middle of the Neman, when the emperor of France and the tsar of Russia met to offer one another peace.
Napoléon : Do you really think France has offered you peace? I would say she has imposed it on you.
Tsar Alexandre I : The French have such a gift for nuance.
Napoléon : It's more than a nuance, sire. You know very well that if you had not accepted my conditions, I would have blown your Austrian and Hungarian allies off the face of the earth, and laid waste to your own empire.
Tsar Alexandre I : And such cruel terminology.
Napoléon : I'm a conqueror, not a lyricist.
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Napoléon : What you said was unfair. You have no idea what that war was like, and the hell I've returned from.
Joséphine de Beauharnais : Hell? With a bit of paradise too. Everyone says that your Polish wife... yes, that's what they call her here... has the face of an angel.
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Joséphine de Beauharnais : Since you're so nice, I'm going to tell you some wonderful news.
Napoléon : Oh, let me guess. The dressmaker has run out of ribbons and silk, and you're going to make do with the 6,000 dresses you already own.
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Napoléon : Caulaincourt is very efficient. Like all the men who serve me. Most of them were mere nobodies before. I seem to have a gift for helping people raise themselves.
Marie-Louise d'Autriche : Well, I started off rather highly placed. Do you think you can raise me even higher?
Napoléon : Yes. I can raise you to happiness.
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Napoléon : They are playing with us, Talleyrand. We've been here an entire week, and all we've done is amuse ourselves, if you can call listening to that Paganini character, amusement.
