Tablet to Napoleon

The form and punctuation given to this inscription by C. suggest its true meaning. Napoleon is called the Egyptian, the Italian, for reasons similar to those for which Publius Cornelius Scipio obtained the name of "Africanus." There is, however, another sense in which the epithet "bis Italicus" is applicable to Napoleon: he was an Italian by birth as well as by conquest. It is in this sense that Voltaire has applied to Henri Quatre the second line of the following couplet:— "Je chante ce héros qui régna sur la France Et par droit de *conquête*, et par droit de *naissance*." As to the "lingual…