But this multitude of information and observations form only the smallest portion of the mental population swarming in this immense brain; for, on his idea of the real, germinate and swarm his concepts of the possible; without these concepts there would be no way to handle and transform things, and that he did handle and transform them we all know. Before acting, he has decided on his plan, and if this plan is adopted, it is one among several others,1170 after examining, comparing, and giving it the preference; he has accordingly thought over all the others. Behind each combination adopted by him we detect those he has rejected; there are dozens of them behind each of his decisions, each maneuver effected, each treaty signed, each decree promulgated, each order issued, and I venture to say, behind almost every improvised action or word spoken. For calculation enters into everything he does, even into his apparent expansiveness, also into his outbursts when in earnest; if he gives way to these, it is on purpose, foreseeing the effect, with a view to intimidate or to dazzle. He turns everything in others as well as in himself to account—his passion, his vehemence, his weaknesses, his talkativeness, he exploits it all for the advancement of the edifice he is constructing.1171 Certainly among his diverse faculties, however great, that of the constructive imagination is the most powerful. At the very beginning we feel its heat and boiling intensity beneath the coolness and rigidity of his technical and positive instructions.

"When I plan a battle," said he to Roederer, "no man is more spineless than I am. I over exaggerate to myself all the dangers and all the evils that are possible under the circumstances. I am in a state of truly painful agitation. But this does not prevent me from appearing quite composed to people around me; I am like a woman giving birth to a child.1172

Passionately, in the throes of the creator, he is thus absorbed with his coming creation; he already anticipates and enjoys living in his imaginary edifice. "General," said Madame de Clermont-Tonnerre to him, one day, "you are building behind a scaffolding which you will take down when you have done with it." "Yes, Madame, that's it," replied Bonaparte; "you are right. I am always living two years in advance."1173 His response came with "incredible vivacity," as if a sudden inspiration, that of a soul stirred in its innermost fiber.—Here as well, the power, the speed, fertility, play, and abundance of his thought seem unlimited. What he has accomplished is astonishing, but what he has undertaken is more so; and whatever he may have undertaken is far surpassed by what he has imagined. However vigorous his practical faculty, his poetical faculty is stronger; it is even too vigorous for a statesman; its grandeur is exaggerated into enormity, and its enormity degenerates into madness. In Italy, after the 18th of Fructidor, he said to Bourrienne:

"Europe is a molehill; never have there been great empires and great revolutions, except in the Orient, with its 600,000,000 inhabitants."1174

The following year at Saint-Jean d'Acre, on the eve of the last assault, he added

"If I succeed I shall find in the town the pasha's treasure and arms for 300,000 men. I stir up and arm all Syria.... I march on Damascus and Aleppo; as I advance in the country my army will increase with the discontented. I proclaim to the people the abolition of slavery, and of the tyrannical government of the pashas. I reach Constantinople with armed masses. I overthrow the Turkish Empire; I found in the East a new and grand empire, which fixes my place with posterity, and perhaps I return to Paris by the way of Adrianople, or by Vienna, after having annihilated the house of Austria." 1175

Become consul, and then emperor, he often referred to this happy period, when, "rid of the restraints of a troublesome civilization," he could imagine at will and construct at pleasure.1176

"I created a religion; I saw myself on the road to Asia, mounted on an elephant, with a turban on my head, and in my hand a new Koran, which I composed to suit myself."

Confined to Europe, he thinks, after 1804, that he will reorganize Charlemagne's empire.

"The French Empire will become the mother country of other sovereignties... I mean that every king in Europe shall build a grand palace at Paris for his own use; on the coronation of the Emperor of the French these kings will come and occupy it; they will grace this imposing ceremony with their presence, and honor it with their salutations."1177 The Pope will come; he came to the first one; he must necessarily return to Paris, and fix himself there permanently. Where could the Holy See be better off than in the new capital of Christianity, under Napoleon, heir to Charlemagne, and temporal sovereign of the Sovereign Pontiff? Through the temporal the emperor will control the spiritual,1178 and through the Pope, consciences."

In November, 1811, unusually excited, he says to De Pradt:

"In five years I shall be master of the world; only Russia will remain, but I will crush her.1179... Paris will extend out to St. Cloud."

To render Paris the physical capital of Europe is, through his own confession, "one of his constant dreams."

"At times," he says,1180"I would like to see her a city of two, three, four millions of inhabitants, something fabulous, colossal, unknown down to our day, and its public establishments adequate to its population.... Archimedes proposed to lift the world if he could be allowed to place his lever; for myself, I would have changed it wherever I could have been allowed to exercise my energy, perseverance, and budgets."

At all events, he believes so; for however lofty and badly supported the next story of his structure may be, he has always ready a new story, loftier and more unsteady, to put above it. A few months before launching himself, with all Europe at his back, against Russia, he said to Narbonne:1181

"After all, my dear sir, this long road is the road to India. Alexander started as far off as Moscow to reach the Ganges; this has occurred to me since St. Jean d'Acre.... To reach England to-day I need the extremity of Europe, from which to take Asia in the rear.... Suppose Moscow taken, Russia subdued, the czar reconciled, or dead through some court conspiracy, perhaps another and dependent throne, and tell me whether it is not possible for a French army, with its auxiliaries, setting out from Tiflis, to get as far as the Ganges, where it needs only a thrust of the French sword to bring down the whole of that grand commercial scaffolding throughout India. It would be the most gigantic expedition, I admit, but practicable in the nineteenth century. Through it France, at one stroke, would secure the independence of the West and the freedom of the seas."

While uttering this his eyes shone with strange brilliancy, and he accumulates subjects, weighing obstacles, means, and chances: the inspiration is under full headway, and he gives himself up to it. The master faculty finds itself suddenly free, and it takes flight; the artist,1182 locked up in politics, has escaped from his sheath; he is creating out of the ideal and the impossible. We take him for what he is, a posthumous brother of Dante and Michael Angelo. In the clear outlines of his vision, in the intensity, coherency, and inward logic of his dreams, in the profundity of his meditations, in the superhuman grandeur of his conceptions, he is, indeed, their fellow and their equal. His genius is of the same stature and the same structure; he is one of the three sovereign minds of the Italian Renaissance. Only, while the first two operated on paper and on marble, the latter operates on the living being, on the sensitive and suffering flesh of humanity.

1101 (return)
[ Reforms introduced by Napoleon after his coup d'État 9 Nov. 1799. (SR.)]

1102 (return)
[ The main authority is, of course, the "correspondance de l'Empereur NapolÉon I.," in thirty-two-volumes. This correspondance, unfortunately, is still incomplete, while, after the sixth volume, it must not be forgotten that much of it has been purposely stricken out. "In general," say the editors (XVI., p.4), "we have been governed simply by this plain rule, that we were required to publish only what the Emperor himself would have given to the public had he survived himself, and, anticipating the verdict of time, exposed to posterity his own personality and system."—The savant who has the most carefully examined this correspondence, entire in the French archives, estimates that it comprises about 80,000 pieces, of which 30,000 have been published in the collection referred to; passages in 20,000 of the others have been stricken out on account of previous publication, and about 30,000 more, through considerations of propriety or policy. For example, but little more than one-half of the letters from Napoleon to Bigot de PrÉameneu on ecclesiastical matters have been published; many of these omitted letters, all important and characteristic, may be found in "L'Église romaine et le Premier Empire," by M. d'Haussonville. The above-mentioned savant estimates the number of important letters not yet published at 2,000.]

1103 (return)
[ "MÉmorial de Sainte HÉlÉne," by Las Casas (May 29, 1816).—"In Corsica, Paoli, on a horseback excursion, explained the positions to him, the places where liberty found resistance or triumphed. Estimating the character of Napoleon by what he saw of it through personal observation, Paoli said to him, "Oh, Napoleon, there is nothing modern in you, you belong wholly to Plutarch!"—Antonomarchi, "MÉmoires," Oct. 25, 1819. The same account, slightly different, is there given: "Oh. Napoleon," said Paoli to me, "you do not belong to this century; you talk like one of Plutarch's characters. Courage, you will take flight yet!"]

1104 (return)
[ De SÉgur, "Histoire et MÉmoires," I., 150. (Narrative by PontÉcoulant, member of the committee in the war, June, 1795.) "Boissy d'Anglas told him that he had seen the evening before a little Italian, pale, slender, and puny, but singularly audacious in his views and in the vigor of his expressions.—The next day, Bonaparte calls on PontÉcou1ant, Attitude rigid through a morbid pride, poor exterior, long visage, hollow and bronzed.... He is just from the army and talks like one who knows what he is talking about."]

1105 (return)
[ Coston, "Biographie des premiÈres annÉes de NapolÉon Buonaparte," 2 vols. (1840), passim.—Yung, "Bonaparte et son Temps," I., 300, 302. (PiÈces gÉnÉalogiques.)—King Joseph, "MÉmoires," I., 109, 111. (On the various branches and distinguished men of the Bonaparte family.)—Miot de Melito, "MÉmoires," II., 30. (Documents on the Bonaparte family, collected on the spot by the author in 1801.)]

1106 (return)
[ "MÉmorial," May 6, 1816.—Miot de Melito, II., 30. (On the Bonapartes of San Miniato): "The last offshoot of this branch was a canon then still living in this same town of San Miniato, and visited by Bonaparte in the year IV, when he came to Florence."]

1107 (return)
[ "Correspondance de l'Empereur NapolÉon I." (Letter of Bonaparte, Sept.29, 1797, in relation to Italy): "A people at bottom inimical to the French through the prejudices, character, and customs of centuries."]

1108 (return)
[ Miot de Melito, I., 126, (1796): "Florence, for two centuries and a half, had lost that antique energy which, in the stormy times of the Republic, distinguished this city. Indolence was the dominant spirit of all classes.. . Almost everywhere I saw only men lulled to rest by the charms of the most exquisite climate, occupied solely with the details of a monotonous existence, and tranquilly vegetating under its beneficent sky."—(On Milan, in 1796, cf. Stendhal, introduction to the "Chartreuse de Parme.")]

1109 (return)
[ "Miot de Melito," I., 131: "Having just left one of the most civilized cities in Italy, it was not without some emotion that I found myself suddenly transported to a country (Corsica) which, in its savage aspect, its rugged mountains, and its inhabitants uniformly dressed in coarse brown cloth, contrasted so strongly with the rich and smiling landscape of Tuscany, and with the comfort, I should almost say elegance, of costume worn by the happy cultivators of that fertile soil."]

1110 (return)
[ Miot de Melito, II., 30: "Of a not very important family of SartÈne."—II., 143. (On the canton of SartÈne and the Vendettas of 1796).—Coston, I., 4: "The family of Madame Laetitia, sprung from the counts of Cotalto, came originally from Italy."]

1111 (return)
[ His father, Charles Bonaparte, weak and even frivolous, "too fond of pleasure to care about his children," and to see to his affairs, tolerably learned and an indifferent head of a family, died at the age of thirty-nine of a cancer in the stomach, which seems to be the only bequest he made to his son Napoleon.—His mother, on the contrary, serious, authoritative, the true head of a family, was, said Napoleon, "hard in her affections she punished and rewarded without distinction, good or bad; she made us all feel it."—On becoming head of the household, "she was too parsimonious-even ridiculously so. This was due to excess of foresight on her part; she had known want, and her terrible sufferings were never out of her mind.... Paoli had tried persuasion with her before resorting to force... . Madame replied heroically, as a Cornelia would have done.... From 12 to 15,000 peasants poured down from the mountains of Ajaccio; our house was pillaged and burnt, our vines destroyed, and our flocks. ... In other respects, this woman, from whom it would have been so difficult to extract five francs, would have given up everything to secure my return from Elba, and after Waterloo she offered me all she possessed to restore my affairs." (" MÉmorial," May 29, 1816, and "MÉmoires d'Antonomarchi," Nov. 18, 1819.—On the ideas and ways of Bonaparte's mother, read her "Conversation" in "Journal et MÉmoires," vol. IV., by Stanislas Girardin.) Duchesse d'AbrantÈs," MÉmoires," II., 318, 369. "Avaricious out of all reason except on a few grave occasions.... No knowledge whatever of the usages of society.... very ignorant, not alone of our literature, but of her own."—Stendhal, "Vie de Napoleon": "The character of her son is to be explained by the perfectly Italian character of Madame Laetitia."]

1112 (return)
[ The French conquest is effected by armed force between July 30, 1768, and May 22, 1769. The Bonaparte family submitted May 23, 1769, and Napoleon was born on the following 15th of August.]

1113 (return)
[ Antonomarchi, "MÉmoires," October 4, 1819. "MÉmorial," May 29, 1816.]

1114 (return)
[ "Miot de Melito," II., 33: "The day I arrived at Bocognano two men lost their lives through private vengeance. About eight years before this one of the inhabitants of the canton had killed a neighbor, the father of two children.... On reaching the age of sixteen or seventeen years these children left the country in order to dog the steps of the murderer, who kept on the watch, not daring to go far from his village.... Finding him playing cards under a tree, they fired at and killed him, and besides this accidentally shot another man who was asleep a few paces off. The relatives on both sides pronounced the act justifiable and according to rule." Ibid., I., 143: "On reaching Bastia from Ajaccio the two principal families of the place, the Peraldi and the Visuldi, fired at each other, in disputing over the honor of entertaining me."]

1115 (return)
[ Bourrienne, "MÉmoires," I., 18, 19.]

1116 (return)
[ De SÉgur, "Histoire et MÉmoires," I,, 74.]

1117 (return)
[ Yung, I., 195. (Letter of Bonaparte to Paoli, June 12, 1789); I., 250 (Letter of Bonaparte to Buttafuoco, January 23 1790).]

1118 (return)
[ Yung, I., 107 (Letter of Napoleon to his father, Sept. 12, 1784); I., 163 (Letter of Napoleon to AbbÉ Raynal, July, 1786); I., 197 (Letter of Napoleon to Paoli, June 12, 1789). The three letters on the history of Corsica are dedicated to AbbÉ Raynal in a letter of June 24, 1790, and may be found in Yung, I., 434.]

1119 (return)
[ Read especially his essay "On the Truths and Sentiments most important to inculcate on Men for their Welfare" (a subject proposed by the Academy of Lyons in 1790). "Some bold men driven by genius.. .. Perfection grows out of reason as fruit out of a tree.... Reason's eyes guard man from the precipice of the passions... The spectacle of the strength of virtue was what the Lacedaemonians principally felt.... Must men then be lucky in the means by which they are led on to happiness?.... My rights (to property) are renewed along with my transpiration, circulate in my blood, are written on my nerves, on my heart.... Proclaim to the rich—your wealth is your misfortune, withdrawn within the latitude of your senses.... Let the enemies of nature at thy voice keep silence and swallow their rabid serpents' tongues.... The wretched shun the society of men, the tapestry of gayety turns to mourning.... Such, gentlemen, are the Sentiments which, in animal relations, mankind should have taught it for its welfare."]

1120 (return)
[ Yung, I., 252 (Letter to Buttafuoco). "Dripping with the blood of his brethren, sullied by every species of crime, he presents himself with confidence under his vest of a general, the sole reward of his criminalities."—I., 192 (Letter to the Corsican Intendant, April 2, 1879). "Cultivation is what ruins us"—See various manuscript letters, copied by Yung, for innumerable and gross mistakes in French.—Miot de Melito, I., 84 (July, 1796). "He spoke curtly and, at this time, very incorrectly."—Madame de RÉmusat, I., 104. "Whatever language he spoke it never seemed familiar to him; he appeared to force himself in expressing his ideas."—Notes par le Comte Chaptal (unpublished), councillor of state and afterwards minister of the interior under the Consulate: "At this time, Bonaparte did not blush at the slight knowledge of administrative details which he possessed; he asked a good many questions and demanded definitions and the meaning of the commonest words in use. As it very often happened with him not to clearly comprehend words which he heard for the first time, he always repeated these afterwards as he understood them; for example, he constantly used section for session, armistice for amnesty, fulminating point for culminating point, rentes voyagÈres for 'rentes viagÈres,' etc."]

1121 (return)
[ De SÉgur, I., 174]

1122 (return)
[ Cf. the "MÉmoires" of Marshal Marmont, I., 15, for the ordinary sentiments of the young nobility. "In 1792 I had a sentiment for the person of the king, difficult to define, of which I recovered the trace, and to some extent the power, twenty-two years later; a sentiment of devotion almost religious in character, an innate respect as if due to a being of a superior order. The word King then possessed a magic, a force, which nothing had changed in pure and honest breasts.... This religion of royalty still existed in the mass of the nation,, and especially amongst the well-born, who, sufficiently remote from power, were rather struck with its brilliancy than with its imperfections.... This love became a sort of worship."]

1123 (return)
[ Bourrienne, "MÉmoires," I. 27.—SÉgur, I. 445. In 1795, at Paris, Bonaparte, being out of military employment, enters upon several commercial speculations, amongst which is a bookstore, which does not succeed. (Stated by Sebastiani and many others.)]

1124 (return)
[ "MÉmorial," Aug. 3, 1816.]

1125 (return)
[ Bourrienne, I., 171. (Original text of the "Souper de Beaucaire.")]

1126 (return)
[ Yung, II., 430, 431. (Words of Charlotte Robespierre.) Bonaparte as a souvenir of his acquaintance with her, granted her a pension, under the consulate, of 3600 francs.—Ibid. (Letter of Tilly, chargÉ d'affaires at Genoa, to Buchot, commissioner of foreign affairs.) Cf. in the "MÉmorial," Napoleon's favorable judgment of Robespierre.]

1127 (return)
[ Yung, II., 455. (Letter from Bonaparte to Tilly, Aug. 7, 1794.) Ibid., III., 120. (Memoirs of Lucien.) "Barras takes care of Josephine's dowry, which is the command of the army in Italy." Ibid., II., 477. (Grading of general officers, notes by SchÉrer on Bonaparte.) "He knows all about artillery, but is rather too ambitious, and too intriguing for promotion."]

1128 (return)
[ De SÉgur, I., 162.—La Fayette, "MÉmoires," II., 215. "MÉmorial" (note dictated by Napoleon). He states the reasons for and against, and adds, speaking of himself: "These sentiments, twenty-five years of age, confidence in his strength, his destiny, determined him." Bourrienne, I., 51: "It is certain that he has always bemoaned that day; he has often said to me that he would give years of his life to efface that page of his history."]

1129 (return)
[ "MÉmorial," I., Sept 6, 1815. "It is only after Lodi that the idea came to me that I might, after all, become a decisive actor on our political stage. Then the first spark of lofty ambition gleamed out." On his aim and conduct in the Italian campaign of Sybel, "Histoire de l'Europe pendant la RÉvolution FranÇaise" (Dosquet translation), vol. IV., books II. and III., especially pp.182, 199, 334, 335, 406, 420, 475, 489.]

1130 (return)
[ Yung, III., 213. (Letter of M. de Sucy, August 4, 1797.)]

1131 (return)
[ Ibid., III., 214. (Report of d'Entraigues to M. de Mowikinoff, Sept., 1797.) "If there was any king in France which was not himself, he would like to have been his creator, with his rights at the end of his sword, this sword never to be parted with, so that he might plunge it in the king's bosom if he ever ceased to be submissive to him."—Miot de Melito, I., 154. (Bonaparte to Montebello, before Miot and Melzi, June, 1797.) Ibid, I., 184. (Bonaparte to Miot, Nov. 18, 1797, at Turin.)]

1132 (return)
[ D'Haussonville, "L'Église Romaine et la Premier Empire," I., 405. (Words of M. Cacault, signer of the Treaty of Tolentino, and French Secretary of Legation at Rome, at the commencement of negotiations for the Concordat.) M. Cacaut says that he used this expression, "After the scenes of Tolentino and of Leghorn, and the fright of Manfredini, and MatÉi threatened, and so many other vivacities."]

1133 (return)
[ Madame de StaËl, "ConsidÉrations sur la RÉvolution FranÇaise," 3rd part, ch. XXVI., and 4th part, ch. XVIII.]

1134 (return)
[ Portrait of Bonaparte in the "Cabinet des Etampes," "drawn by GuÉrin, engraved by Fiesinger, deposited in the National Library, VendÉmiaire 29, year VII."]

1135 (return)
[ Madame de RÉmusat, "MÉmoires," I., 104.—Miot de Melito, I., 84.]

1136 (return)
[ Madame de StaËl, "Considerations," etc., 3rd part, ch. XXV.—Madame de RÉmusat, II., 77.]

1137 (return)
[ Stendhal, "MÉmoires sur NapolÉon," narration of Admiral DecrÈs.—Same narration in the "MÉmorial."]

1138 (return)
[ De SÉgur, I., 193.]

1139 (return)
[ Roederer, "Oeuvres complÉtes," II., 560. (Conversations with General Lasalle in 1809, and Lasalle's judgment on the dÉbuts of Napoleon).]

1140 (return)
[ Another instance of this commanding influence is found in the case of General Vandamme, an old revolutionary soldier still more brutal and energetic than Augereau. In 1815, Vandamme said to Marshal d'Ornano, one day, on ascending the staircase of the Tuileries together: "My dear fellow, that devil of a man (speaking of the Emperor) fascinates me in a way I cannot account for. I, who don't fear either God or the devil, when I approach him I tremble like a child. He would make me dash through the eye of a needle into the fire!" ("Le GÉnÉral Vandamme," by du Casse, II., 385).]

1141 (return)
[ Roederer, III., 356. (Napoleon himself says, February 11, 1809): "I, military! I am so, because I was born so; it is my habit, my very existence. Wherever I have been I have always had command. I commanded at twenty-three, at the siege of Toulon; I commanded at Paris in VendÉmiaire; I won over the soldiers in Italy the moment I presented myself. I was born for that."]

1142 (return)
[ Observe the various features of the same mental and moral structure among different members of the family. (Speaking of his brothers and sisters in the "Memorial" Napoleon says): "What family as numerous presents such a splendid group?"—"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France, in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. Vol. I. p. 400. (This author, a young magistrate under Louis XVI., a high functionary under the Empire, an important political personage under the restoration and the July monarchy, is probably the best informed and most judicious of eye-witnesses during the first half of our century.): "Their vices and virtues surpass ordinary proportions and have a physiognomy of their own. But what especially distinguishes them is a stubborn will, and inflexible resolution.... All possessed the instinct of their greatness." They readily accepted "the highest positions; they even got to believing that their elevation was inevitable.... Nothing in the incredible good fortune of Joseph astonished him; often in January, 1814, I heard him say over and over again that if his brother had not meddled with his affairs after the second entry into Madrid, he would still be on the throne of Spain. As to determined obstinacy we have only to refer to the resignation of Louis, the retirement of Lucien, and the resistances of Fesch; they alone could stem the will of Napoleon and sometimes break a lance with him.—Passion, sensuality, the habit of considering themselves outside of rules, and self-confidence combined with talent, super abound among the women, as in the fifteenth century. Elisa, in Tuscany, had a vigorous brain, was high spirited and a genuine sovereign, notwithstanding the disorders of her private life, in which even appearances were not sufficiently maintained." Caroline at Naples, "without being more scrupulous than her sisters," better observed the proprieties; none of the others so much resembled the Emperor; "with her, all tastes succumbed to ambition"; it was she who advised and prevailed upon her husband, Murat, to desert Napoleon in 1814. As to Pauline, the most beautiful woman of her epoch, "no wife, since that of the Emperor Claude, surpassed her in the use she dared make of her charms; nothing could stop her, not even a malady attributed to the strain of this life-style and for which we have so often seen her borne in a litter."—Jerome, "in spite of the uncommon boldness of his debaucheries, maintained his ascendancy over his wife to the last."—On the "pressing efforts and attempts" of Joseph on Maria Louise in 1814, Chancelier Pasquier, after Savary's papers and the evidence of M. de Saint-Aignan, gives extraordinary details.—"Mes souvenirs sur NapolÉon, 346, by the count Chaptal: "Every member of this numerous family (JÉrÔme, Louis, Joseph, the Bonaparte sisters) mounted thrones as if they had recovered so much property."]

1143 (return)
[ Burkhardt, "Die Renaissance in Italien," passim.—Stendhal, "Histoire de la peinture en Italie"(introduction), and" Rome, Naples, et Florence," passim.—"Notes par le Comte Chaptal": When these notes are published, many details will be found in them in support of the judgment expressed in this and the following chapters. The psychology of Napoleon as here given is largely confirmed by them.]

1144 (return)
[ Roederer, III, 380 (1802).]

1145 (return)
[ Napoleon uses the French word just which means both fair, justifiable, pertinent, correct, and in music true.]

1146 (return)
[ "MÉmorial."]

1147 (return)
[ De Pradt, "Histoire de l'Ambassade dans la grande-duchÉ de Varsovie en 1812," preface, p. X, and 5.]

1148 (return)
[ Roederer, III., 544 (February 24, 1809). Cf. Meneval, "NapolÉon et Marie-Louise, souvenirs historiques," I., 210-213.]

1149 (return)
[ Pelet de la LozÈre," Opinions de NapolÉon au conseil d'État," p.8.—Roederer, III., 380.]

1150 (return)
[ Mollien, "MÉmoires," I., 379; II., 230.—Roederer, III., 434. "He is at the head of all things. He governs, administrates, negotiates, works eighteen hours a day, with the clearest and best organized head; he has governed more in three years than kings in a hundred years."—Lavalette, "MÉmoires," II., 75. (The words of Napoleon's secretary on Napoleon's labor in Paris, after Leipsic) "He retires at eleven, but gets up at three o'clock in the morning, and until the evening there is not a moment he does not devote to work. It is time this stopped, for he will be used up, and myself before he is."—Gaudin, Duc de GaËte, "MÉmoires," III. (supplement), p.75. Account of an evening in which, from eight o'clock to three in the morning, Napoleon examines with Gaudin his general budget, during seven consecutive hours, without stopping a minute.—Sir Neil Campbell, "NapolÉon at Fontainebleau and at Elbe," p.243. "Journal de Sir Neil Campbell a' l'ile d'Elbe": I never saw any man, in any station in life, so personally active and so persistent in his activity. He seems to take pleasure in perpetual motion and in seeing those who accompany him completely tired out, which frequently happened in my case when I accompanied him.. . Yesterday, after having been on his legs from eight in the morning to three in the afternoon, visiting the frigates and transports, even to going down to the lower compartments among the horses, he rode on horseback for three hours, and, as he afterwards said to me, to rest himself."]

1151 (return)
[ The starting-point of the great discoveries of Darwin is the physical, detailed description he made in his study of animals and plants, as living; during the whole course of life, through so many difficulties and subject to a fierce competition. This study is wholly lacking in the ordinary zoologist or botanist, whose mind is busy only with anatomical preparations or collections of plants. In every science, the difficulty lies in describing in a nutshell, using significant examples, the real object, just as it exists before us, and its true history. Claude Bernard one day remarked to me, "We shall know physiology when we are able to follow step by step a molecule of carbon or azote in the body of a dog, give its history, and describe its passage from its entrance to its exit."]

1152 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, "MÉmoires sur le Consulat," 204. (Apropos of the tribunate): "They consist of a dozen or fifteen metaphysicians who ought to be flung into the water; they crawl all over me like vermin."]

1153 (return)
[ Madame de RÉmusat, I., 115: "He is really ignorant, having read very little and always hastily."—Stendhal, "MÉmoires sur Napoleon": "His education was very defective....He knew nothing of the great principles discovered within the past one hundred years," and just those which concern man or society. "For example, he had not read Montesquieu as this writer ought to be read, that is to say, in a way to accept or decidedly reject each of the thirty-one books of the 'Esprit des lois.' He had not thus read Bayle's Dictionary nor the Essay on the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. This ignorance of the Emperor's was not perceptible in conversation, and first, because he led in conversation, and next because with Italian finesse no question put by him, or careless supposition thrown out, ever betrayed that ignorance."—Bourrienne. I., 19, 21: At Brienne, "unfortunately for us, the monks to whom the education of youth was confided knew nothing, and were too poor to pay good foreign teachers.... It is inconceivable how any capable man ever graduated from this educational institution."—Yung, I., 125 (Notes made by him on Bonaparte, when he left the Military Academy): "Very fond of the abstract sciences, indifferent to others, well grounded in mathematics and geography."]

1154 (return)
[ Roederer, III., 544 (March 6, 1809), 26, 563 (Jan. 23, 1811, and Nov. 12, 1813).]

1155 (return)
[ Mollien, I., 348 (a short time before the rupture of the peace of Amiens), III., 16: "It was at the end of January, 1809, that he wanted a full report of the financial situation on the 31st of December, 1808 .... This report was to be ready in two days."—III., 34: "A complete balance sheet of the public treasury for the first six months of 1812 was under Napoleon's eyes at Witebsk, the 11th of August, eleven days after the close of these first six months. What is truly wonderful is, that amidst so many different occupations and preoccupations.... he could preserve such an accurate run of the proceedings and methods of the administrative branches about which he wanted to know at any moment. Nobody had any excuse for not answering him, for each was questioned in his own terms; it is that singular aptitude of the head of the State, and the technical precision of his questions, which alone explains how he could maintain such a remarkable ensemble in an administrative system of which the smallest threads centered in himself."]

1156 (return)
[ 200 years after the death of Napoleon Sir Alfred Ayer thus writes in "LANGUAGE, TRUTH AND LOGIC": 'Actually, we shall see that the only test to which a form of scientific procedure which satisfies the necessary condition of self-consistency is subject, is the test of its success in practice. We are entitled to have faith in our procedure just so long as it does the work it is designed to do—that is, enables us to predict future experience, and so to control our environment.' And on the Purpose of Inquiry: 'The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful. The surest way to end them is to establish beyond question what should be the purpose and the method of philosophical inquiry.' (SR.)]

1157 (return)
[ An expression of Mollien.]

1158 (return)
[ Meneval, I., 210, 213.—Roederer, III., 537, 545 (February and March, 1889): Words of Napoleon: "At this moment it was nearly midnight."—Ibid., IV., 55 (November, 1809). Read the admirable examination of Roederer by Napoleon on the Kingdom of Naples. His queries form a vast systematic and concise network, embracing the entire subject, leaving no physical or moral data, no useful circumstance not seized upon.—SÉgur, II., 231: M. De SÉgur, ordered to inspect every part of the coast-line, had sent in his report: "'I have seen your reports,' said the First Consul to me, 'and they are exact. Nevertheless, you forgot at Osten two cannon out of the four.'—And he pointed out the place, 'a roadway behind the town.' I went out overwhelmed with astonishment that among thousands of cannon distributed among the mounted batteries or light artillery on the coast, two pieces should not have escaped his recollection."—"Correspondance," letter to King Joseph, August 6, 1806: "The admirable condition of my armies is due to this, that I give attention to them every day for an hour or two, and, when the monthly reports come in, to the state of my troops and fleets, all forming about twenty large volumes. I leave every other occupation to read them over in detail, to see what difference there is between one month and another. I take more pleasure in reading those than any young girl does in a novel."—Cadet de Gassicourt, "Voyage en Autriche"(1809). On his reviews at Schoenbrunn and his verification of the contents of a pontoon-wagon, taken as an example.]

1159 (return)
[ One ancient French league equals app. 4 km. (SR.)]

1160 (return)
[ Bourrienne, II., 116; IV., 238: "He had not a good memory for proper names, words, and dates, but it was prodigious for facts and localities. I remember that, on the way from Paris to Toulon, he called my attention to ten places suitable for giving battle.... It was a souvenir of his youthful travels, and he described to me the lay of the ground, designating the positions he would have taken even before we were on the spot." March 17, 1800, puncturing a card with a pin, he shows Bourrienne the place where he intends to beat MÉlas, at San Juliano. "Four months after this I found myself at San Juliano with his portfolio and dispatches, and, that very evening, at Torre-di-Gafolo, a league off, I wrote the bulletin of the battle under his dictation" (of Marengo).—De SÉgur, II., 30 (Narrative of M. Daru to M. De SÉgur Aug. 13, 1805, at the headquarters of La Manche, Napoleon dictates to M. Daru the complete plan of the campaign against Austria): "Order of marches, their duration, places of convergence or meeting of the columns, attacks in full force, the various movements and mistakes of the enemy, all, in this rapid dictation, was foreseen two months beforehand and at a distance of two hundred leagues.... The battle-field, the victories, and even the very days on which we were to enter Munich and Vienna were then announced and written down as it all turned out.... Daru saw these oracles fulfilled on the designated days up to our entry into Munich; if there were any differences of time and not of results between Munich and Vienna, they were all in our favor."—M. de La Vallette, "MÉmoires," II., p. 35. (He was postmaster-general): "It often happened to me that I was not as certain as he was of distances and of many details in my administration on which he was able to set me straight."—On returning from the camp at Bologna, Napoleon encounters a squad of soldiers who had got lost, asks what regiment they belong to, calculates the day they left, the road they took, what distance they should have marched. and then tells them, "You will find your battalion at such a halting place."—At this time, "the army numbered 200,000 men."]

1161 (return)
[ Madame de RÉmusat, I., 103, 268.]

1162 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, p.25, I (on the Jacobin survivors): "They are nothing but common artisans, painters, etc., with lively imaginations, a little better instructed than the people, living amongst the people and exercising influence over them."—Madame de RÉmusat, I., 271 (on the royalist party): "It is very easy to deceive that party because its starting-point is not what it is, but what it would like to have."—I., 337: "The Bourbons will never see anything except through the Oeil de Boeuf."—Thibaudeau, p.46: "Insurrections and emigrations are skin diseases; terrorism is an internal malady." Ibid., 75: "What now keeps the spirit of the army up is the idea soldiers have that they occupy the places of former nobles."]

1163 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, pp.419 to 452. (Both texts are given in separate columns.) And passim, for instance, p.84, the following portrayal of the decadal system of worship under the Republic: "It was imagined that citizens could be got together in churches, to freeze with cold and hear, read, and study laws, in which there was already but little fun for those who executed them." Another example of the way in which his ideas expressed themselves through imagery (Pelet de la LozÈre, p. 242): "I am not satisfied with the customs regulations on the Alps. They show no life. We don't hear the rattle of crown pieces pouring into the public treasury." To appreciate the vividness of Napoleon's expressions and thought the reader must consult, especially, the five or six long conversations, noted on the very evening of the day they occurred by Roederer; the two or three conversations likewise noted by Miot de Melito; the scenes narrated by Beugnot; the notes of Pelet de la LozÈre and by Stanislas de Girardin, and nearly the entire volume by Thibaudeau.]

1164 (return)
[ Pelet de la LozÈre, 63, 64. (On the physiological differences between the English and the French.)—Madame de RÉmusat, I., 273, 392: "You, Frenchmen, are not in earnest about anything, except, perhaps, equality, and even here you would gladly give this up if you were sure of being the foremost.... The hope of advancement in the world should be cherished by everybody.... Keep your vanity always alive The severity of the republican government would have worried you to death. What started the Revolution? Vanity. What will end it? Vanity, again. Liberty is merely a pretext."—III., 153 "Liberty is the craving of a small and privileged class by nature, with faculties superior to the common run of men; this class, therefore, may be put under restraint with impunity; equality, on the contrary, catches the multitude."—Thibaudeau, 99: "What do I care for the opinions and cackle of the drawing-room? I never heed it. I pay attention only to what rude peasants say." His estimates of certain situations are masterpieces of picturesque concision. "Why did I stop and sign the preliminaries of Leoben? Because I played vingt-et-un and was satisfied with twenty." His insight into (dramatic) character is that of the most sagacious critic. "The 'Mahomet' of Voltaire is neither a prophet nor an Arab, only an impostor graduated out of the École Polytechnique."—"Madame de Genlis tries to define virtue as if she were the discoverer of it."—(On Madame de StaËl): "This woman teaches people to think who never took to it, or have forgotten how."—(On Chateaubriand, one of whose relations had just been shot): "He will write a few pathetic pages and read them aloud in the faubourg Saint-Germain; pretty women will shed tears, and that will console him."—(On AbbÉ Delille): "He is wit in its dotage."—(On Pasquier and MolÉ): "I make the most of one, and made the other."—Madame de RÉmusat, II., 389, 391, 394, 399, 402; III., 67.]

1165 (return)
[ Bourrienne, II., 281, 342: "It pained me to write official statements under his dictation, of which each was an imposture." He always answered: "My dear sir, you are a simpleton—you understand nothing!"—Madame de RÉmusat, II., 205, 209.]

1166 (return)
[ See especially the campaign bulletins for 1807, so insulting to the king and queen of Prussia, but, owing to that fact, so well calculated to excite the contemptuous laughter and jeers of the soldiers.]

1167 (return)
[ In "La Correspondance de Napoleon," published in thirty-two volumes, the letters are arranged under dates.—In his '"Correspondance avec EugÈne, vice-roi d'Italie," they are arranged under chapters; also with Joseph, King of Naples and afterwards King of Spain. It is easy to select other chapters not less instructive: one on foreign affairs (letters to M. de Champagny, M de Talleyrand, and M. de Bassano); another on the finances (letters to M. Gaudin and to M. Mollien); another on the navy (letters to Admiral DecrÈs); another on military administration (letters to General Clarke); another on the affairs of the Church (letters to M. Portalis and to M. Bigot de PrÉameneu); another on the Police (letters to FouchÉ), etc.—Finally, by dividing and distributing his letters according as they relate to this or that grand enterprise, especially to this or that military campaign, a third classification could be made.—In this way we can form a concept of the vastness of his positive knowledge, also of the scope of his intellect and talents. Cf. especially the following letters to Prince EugÈne, June II, 1806 (on the supplies and expenses of the Italian army); June 1st and 18th, 1806 (on the occupation of Dalmatia, and on the military situation, offensive and defensive). To Gen. Dejean, April 28, 1806 (on the war supplies); June 27, 1806 (on the fortifications of Peschiera) July 20, 1806 (on the fortifications of Wesel and of Juliers).—"Mes souvenirs sur Napoleon", p. 353 by the Count Chaptal: "One day, the Emperor said to me that he would like to organize a military school at Fontainebleau; he then explained to me the principal features of the establishment, and ordered me to draw up the necessary articles and bring them to him the next day. I worked all night and they were ready at the appointed hour. He read them over and pronounced them correct, but not complete. He bade me take a seat and then dictated to me for two or three hours a plan which consisted of five hundred and seventeen articles. Nothing more perfect, in my opinion, ever issued from a man's brain.—At another time, the Empress Josephine was to take the waters at Aix-la-Chapelle, and the Emperor summoned me. 'The Empress,' said he, 'is to leave to-morrow morning. She is a good-natured, easy-going woman and must have her route and behavior marked out for her. Write it down.' He then dictated instructions to me on twenty-one large sheets of paper, in which everything she was to say and to do was designated, even the questions and replies she was to make to the authorities on the way."]

1168 (return)
[ One French league equals approximately 4 km. 70,000 square leagues then equal 1,120,000 km.2, or 400,000 square miles or 11% of the United States but 5 times the size of Great Britain. (SR.)]

1169 (return)
[ Cf. in the "Correspondance" the letters dated at Schoenbrunn near Vienna, during August and September, 1809, and especially: the great number of letters and orders relating to the English expeditions to Walcheren; the letters to chief-judge RÉgnier and to the arch-chancellor CambacÉrÈs on expropriations for public benefit (Aug. 21, Sept. 7 and 29); the letters and orders to M. de Champagny to treat with Austria (Aug. 19, and Sept. 10, 15, 18, 22, and 23); the letters to Admirable DecrÈs, to despatch naval expeditions to the colonies (Aug.17 and Sept. 26); the letter to Mollien on the budget of expenditure (Aug. 8); the letter to Clarke on the statement of guns in store throughout the empire (Sept. 14). Other letters, ordering the preparation of two treatises on military art (Oct. 1), two works on the history and encroachments of the Holy See (Oct. 3), prohibiting conferences at Saint-Sulpice (Sept. 15), and forbidding priests to preach outside the churches (Sept. 24).—From Schoenbrunn, he watches the details of public works in France and Italy; for instance, the letters to M. le Montalivet (Sept.30), to send an auditor post to Parma, to have a dyke repaired at once, and (Oct. 8) to hasten the building of several bridges and quays at Lyons.]

1170 (return)
[ He says himself; "I always transpose my theme in many ways."]

1171 (return)
[ Madame de RÉmusat, I., 117, 120. "1 heard M. de Talleyrand exclaim one day, some what out of humor, 'This devil of a man misleads you in all directions. Even his passions escape you, for he finds some way to counterfeit them, although they really exist.'"—For example, immediately prior to the violent confrontation with Lord Whitworth, which was to put an end to the treaty of Amiens, he was chatting and amusing himself with the women and the infant Napoleon, his nephew, in the gayest and most unconcerned manner: "He is suddenly told that the company had assembled. His countenance changes like that of an actor when the scene shifts. He seems to turn pale at will and his features contract"; he rises, steps up precipitately to the English ambassador, and fulminates for two hours before two hundred persons. (Hansard's Parliamentary History, vol. XXVI, dispatches of Lord Whitworth, pp. 1798, 1302, 1310.)—"He often observes that the politician should calculate every advantage that could be gained by his defects." One day, after an explosion he says to AbbÉ de Pradt: "You thought me angry! you are mistaken. Anger with me never mounts higher than here (pointing to his neck)."]

1172 (return)
[ Roederer, III. (The first days of Brumaire, year VIII.)]

1173 (return)
[ Bourrienne, III., 114.]

1174 (return)
[ Bourrienne, II., 228. (Conversation with Bourrienne in the park at Passeriano.)]

1175 (return)
[ Ibid., II., 331. (Written down by Bourrienne the same evening.)]

1176 (return)
[ Madame de RÉmusat, I., 274.—De SÉgur, II., 459. (Napoleon's own words on the eve of the battle of Austerlitz): "Yes, if I had taken Acre, I would have assumed the turban, I would have put the army in loose breeches; I would no longer have exposed it, except at the last extremity; I would have made it my sacred battalion, my immortals. It is with Arabs, Greeks, and Armenians that I would have ended the war against the Turks. Instead of one battle in Moravia I would have gained a battle of Issus; I would have made myself emperor of the East, and returned to Paris by the way of Constantinople."—De Pradt, p.19 (Napoleon's own words at Mayence, September, 1804): "Since two hundred years there is nothing more to do in Europe; it is only in the East that things can be carried out on a grand scale."]

1177 (return)
[ Madame de RÉmusat, I., 407.—Miot de Melito, II., 214 (a few weeks after his coronation): "There will be no repose in Europe until it is under one head, under an Emperor, whose officers would be kings, who would distribute kingdoms to his lieutenants, who would make one of them King of Italy, another King of Bavaria, here a landmann of Switzerland, and here a stadtholder of Holland, etc."]

1178 (return)
[ "Correspondance de Napoleon I.," vol. XXX., 550, 558. (Memoirs dictated by Napoleon at Saint HÉlÈne.)—Miot de Melito, II., 290.—D'Hausonvillc, "l'Église Romaine et le Premier Empire, passim.— MÉmorial." "Paris would become the capital of the Christian world, and I would have governed the religious world as well as the political world."]

1179 (return)
[ De Pradt, 23.]

1180 (return)
[ "MÉmoires et MÉmorial." "It was essential that Paris should become the unique capital, not to be compared with other capitals. The masterpieces of science and of art, the museums, all that had illustrated past centuries, were to be collected there. Napoleon regretted that he could not transport St. Peter's to Paris; the meanness of Notre Dame dissatisfied him."]

1181 (return)
[ Villemain, "Souvenir contemporaines," I., 175. Napoleon's statement to M. de Narbonne early in March, 1812, and repeated by him to Villemain an hour afterwards. The wording is at second hand and merely a very good imitation, while the ideas are substantially Napoleon's. Cf. his fantasies about Italy and the Mediterranean, equally exaggerated ("Correspondence," XXX., 548), and an admirable improvisation on Spain and the colonies at Bayonne.—De Pradt. "MÉmoires sur les revolutions d'Espagne," p.130: "Therefore Napoleon talked, or rather poetised; he Ossianized for a long time... like a man full of a sentiment which oppressed him, in an animated, picturesque style, and with the impetuosity, imagery, and originality which were familiar to him,... on the vast throne of Mexico and Peru, on the greatness of the sovereigns who should possess them.. .. and on the results which these great foundations would have on the universe. I had often heard him, but under no circumstances had I ever heard him develop such a wealth and compass of imagination. Whether it was the richness of his subject, or whether his faculties had become excited by the scene he conjured up, and all the chords of the instrument vibrated at once, he was sublime."]

1182 (return)
[ Roederer, III., 541 (February 2, 1809): "I love power. But I love it as an artist.... I love it as a musician loves his violin, for the tones, chords, and harmonies he can get out of it."]