Quote of the Day

A story, probably apocryphal but I love it, was when Napoleon was told about a man who had a severe social impediment, which was that whenever there was any ambiguity, this man would take the wrong interpretation. It would intensely annoy people around him. But to Bonaparte, this was a great gift, such that he employed this man to come on campaigns with him as an aide, so that whenever he wrote out a command to one of his marshals in the heat of battle, he would give it to “Napoleon’s Fool” first, to tell the Emperor what he thought it meant. If the “Fool” responded with the wrong interpretation, Napoleon would rewrite the command until it was crystal clear.