Nevertheless, if we go back in time, beyond modern times, beyond the Middle Ages, as far as the antique world, we encounter during the Roman emperors Diocletian's and Constantine's era another monument whose architecture, equally regular, is developed on a still grander scale: back then we are in the natal atmosphere and stand on the natal soil of the classic spirit.—At this time, the human material, more reduced and better prepared than in France, existed similarly in the requisite condition. At this date, we likewise see at work the prearranging reasoning-faculty

* which simplifies in order to deduce,

* which leaves out historic customs and local diversities,

* which considers the basic human being,

* which treats individuals as units and the people as totals,

* which forcibly applies its general outlines to all special lives, and

* which glories in constituting, legislating, and administering by rule according to the measurements of square and compass.

At this date, in effect, the turn of mind, the talent, the ways of the Roman architect, his object, his resources and his means of execution, are already those of his French successor; the conditions around him in the Roman world are equivalent; behind him in Roman history the precedents, ancient and recent, are almost the same.

In the first place,2330 there is, since emperor Augustus, the absolute monarchy, and, since the Antonines, administrative centralization the result of which is that

* all the old national and municipal communities are broken up or crushed out,

* all collective existences chilled or extinguished,

* local patriotism slowly worn away,

* an increasing diminution of individual initiative,

and, under the invasive interference, direction, and providence of the State, one hundred millions of men become more and more passive and separated from each other.2331

And as a result, in full enjoyment of peace and internal prosperity under the appearances of union, force, and health, latent feebleness, and, as in France on the approach of 1789, a coming dissolution.

There is next, as after 1789 in France, the total collapse, not from below and among the people, but from above and through the army, a worse collapse than in France, prolonged for fifty years of anarchy, civil wars, local usurpations, ephemeral tyrannies, urban seditions, rural jacqueries, brigandage, famines, and invasions along the whole frontier, with such a ruin of agriculture and other useful activities, with such a diminution of public and private capital, with such a destruction of human lives that, in twenty years, the number of the population seems to have diminished one half.2332 There is, finally, as after 1799, in France, the re-establishment of order brought about more slowly, but by the same means, the army and a dictatorship, in the rude hands of three or four great military parvenus, Pannonians or Dalmatians, Bonapartes of Sirmium or of Scutari, they too, of a new race or of intact energy, adventurers and children of their own deeds, the last Diocletian, like Napoleon, a restorer and an innovator. Around them, as around Napoleon, to aid them in their civil undertakings, is a crowd of expert administrators and eminent jurisconsults, all practitioners, statesmen, and businessmen, and yet men of culture, logicians, and philosophers. They were imbued with the double governmental and humanitarian view, which for three centuries Greek speculation and Roman practice had introduced into minds and imaginations. This view, at once leveling and authoritative, tending to exaggerate the attributes of the State and the supreme power of the prince,2333 was nevertheless inclined

* to put natural right in the place of positive law,2334

* to preferring equity and logic to antiquity and to custom,

* to reinstate the dignity of man among the qualities of mankind,

* to enhance the condition of the slave, of the provincial, of the debtor, of the bastard, of woman, of the child, and

* to recover for the human community all its inferior members, foreign or degraded, which the ancient constitution of the family and of the city had excluded from it.

Therefore Napoleon could find the outlines of his construction in the political, legislative, and judicial organizations extending from Diocletian to Constantine, and beyond these down to Theodosius. At the base, popular sovereignty;2335 the powers of the people delegated unconditionally to one man. This omnipotence conferred, theoretically or apparently, through the free choice of citizens, but really through the will of the army. No protection against the Prince's arbitrary edict, except a no less arbitrary rescript from the same hand. His successor designated, adopted, and qualified by himself. A senate for show, a council of state for administration; all local powers conferred from above; cities under tutelage. All subjects endowed with the showy title of citizen, and all citizens reduced to the humble condition of taxpayers and of people under control. An administration of a hundred thousand officials taking all services into its hands, comprising public instruction, public succor, and public supplies of food, together with systems of worship. This was at first pagan cults, and after Constantine, the Christian cult. All these services were classified, ranked, co-coordinated, carefully defined in such a way as not to encroach on each other, and carefully combined in such a way as to complete each other. An immense hierarchy of transferable functionaries was kept at work from above on one hundred and eighty square leagues of territory; thirty populations of different race and language-Syrians, Egyptians, Numidians, Spaniards, Gauls, Britons, Germans, Greeks, Italians—subject to the same uniform RÉgime. The territory was divided like a checker-board, on arithmetical and geometrical principles, into one hundred or one hundred and twenty small provinces; old nations or States dismembered and purposely cut up so as to put an end forever to natural, spontaneous, and viable groups. A minute and verified census taking place every fifteen years to correctly assign land taxes. An official and universal language; a State system of worship, and, very soon, a Church and State orthodoxy. A systematic code of laws, full and precise, admirable for the rule of private life, a sort of moral geometry in which the theorems, rigorously linked together, are attached to the definitions and axioms of abstract justice. A scale of grades, one above the other, which everybody may ascend from the first to the last; titles of nobility more and more advanced, suited to more and more advanced functions; spectabiles, illustres, clarissimi, perfectissimi, analogous to Napoleon's Barons, Counts, Dukes, and Princes. A programme of promotion once exhibiting, and on which are still seen, common soldiers, peasants, a shepherd, a barbarian, the son of a cultivator (colon), the grandson of a slave, mounting gradually upward to the highest dignities, becoming patrician, Count, Duke, commander of the cavalry, CÆsar, Augustus, and donning the imperial purple, enthroned amid the most sumptuous magnificence and the most elaborate ceremonial prostrations, a being called God during his lifetime, and after death adored as a divinity, and dead or alive, a complete divinity on earth.2336

So colossal an edifice, so admirably adjusted, so mathematical, could not wholly perish; its hewn stones were too massive, too nicely squared; too exactly fitted, and the demolisher's hammer could not reach down to its deepest foundations.—This one, through its shaping and its structure, through its history and its duration, resembles the stone edifices which the same people at the same epoch elevated on the same soil, the aqueducts, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, the Coliseum, the baths of Diocletian and of Caracalla.

The medieval man, using their intact foundations and their shattered fragments, built here and there, haphazard, according to the necessities of the moment, planting his Gothic towers between Corinthian columns against the panels of walls still standing.2337 But, under his incoherent masonry, he observed the beautiful forms, the precious marbles, the architectural combinations, the symmetrical taste of an anterior and superior art; he felt that his own work was rude. The new world, to all thinking minds, was miserable compared with the old one; its languages seemed a patois (crude dialect), its literature mere stammering or driveling, its law a mass of abuses or a mere routine, its feudality anarchy, and its social arrangements, disorder.—In vain had the medieval man striven to escape through all issues, by the temporal road and by the spiritual road, by the universal and absolute monarchy of the German Cesars, and by the universal and absolute monarchy of the Roman pontiffs. At the end of the fifteenth century the Emperor still possessed the golden globe, the golden crown, the scepter of Charlemagne and of Otho the Great, but, after the death of Frederick II., he was nothing more than a majesty for show; the Pope still wore the tiara, still held the pastoral staff and the keys of Gregory VII. and of Innocent III., but, after the death of Boniface VIII., he was nothing more than a majesty of the Church. Both abortive restorations had merely added ruins to ruins, while the phantom of the ancient empire alone remained erect amid so many fragments. Grand in its outlines and decorations, it stood there, august, dazzling, in a halo, the unique masterpiece of art and of reason, as the ideal form of human society. For ten centuries this specter haunted the medieval epoch, and nowhere to such an extent as in Italy.2338

It reappears the last time in 1800, starting up in and taking firm hold of the magnificent, benighted imagination of the great Italian,2339 to whom the opportunity afforded the means for executing the grand Italian dream of the Middle Ages; it is according to this retrospective vision that the Diocletian of Ajaccio, the Constantine of the Concordat, the Justinian of the Civil Code, the Theodosius of the Tuileries and of St. Cloud reconstructed France.

This does not mean that he copies—he restores; his conception is not plagiarism, but a case of atavism; it comes to him through the nature of his intellect and through racial traditions. In the way of social and political conceptions, as in literature and in art, his spontaneous taste is ultra-classic. We detect this in his mode of comprehending the history of France; State historians, "encouraged by the police," must make it to order; they must trace it "from the end of Louis XIV. to the year VIII," and their object must be to show how superior the new architecture is to the old one.2340 "The constant disturbance of the finances must be noted, the chaos of the provincial assemblies,... the pretensions of the parliaments, the lack of energy and order in the administration, that parti-colored France with no unity of laws or of administration, being rather a union of twenty kingdoms than one single State, so that one breathes on reaching the epoch in which people enjoy the benefits of the unity of the laws, of the administration, and of the territory." In effect, he breathes; in thus passing from the former to the latter spectacle, he finds real intellectual pleasure; his eyes, offended with Gothic disorder, turn with relief and satisfaction to majestic simplicity and classic regularity; his eyes are those of a Latin architect brought up in the "École de Rome."

This is so true that, outside of this style, he admits of no other. Societies of a different type seem to him absurd. He misconceives their local propriety and the historical reasons for their existence. He takes no account of their solidity. He is going to dash himself against Spain and against Russia, and he has no comprehension whatever of England.2341—This is so true that, wherever he places his hand he applies his own social system; he imposes on annexed territories and on vassal2342 countries the same uniform arrangements, his own administrative hierarchy, his own territorial divisions and sub-divisions, his own conscription, his civil code, his constitutional and ecclesiastical system, his university, his system of equality and promotion, the entire French system, and, as far as possible, the language, literature, drama, and even the spirit of his France,—in brief, civilization as he conceives it, so that conquest becomes propaganda, and, as with his predecessors, the Cesars of Rome, he sometimes really fancies that the establishment of his universal monarchy is a great benefit to Europe.

2301 (return)
[ De Tocqueville, "L'Ancien rÉgime et la Revolution." p. 64 and following pages, also p.354 and following pages.—"The Ancient RÉgime," p. 368.]

2302 (return)
[ "The Revolution," I., book I., especially pp. 16, 17, 55, 61, 62-65. (Laffont I., 326, 354, 357 to 360.)]

2303 (return)
[ "The Ancient Regime," pp.—36-59. (Laff. I. pp. 33-48.)]

2304 (return)
[ Ibid., pp. 72-77. (Laff. I. pp. 59 to 61.)]

2305 (return)
[ Ibid., pp. 78-82. (Laff. I. pp. 50-52)]

2306 (return)
[ Cf. FrÉdÉric Masson, "Le Marquis de Grignan," vol. I.]

2307 (return)
[ "The Revolution," I., p. 161 and following pages; II., book VI., ch. I., especially p. 80 and following pages. (Laffont I. 428 to 444, 632 and II 67 to 69.)]

2308 (return)
[ Ibid., I., P.193 and following pages, and p.226 and following pages.(Ed. Laffont. I. 449 to 452, 473 to 481.)]

2309 (return)
[ "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. I., 148 (in relation to the institution prefects and sub-prefects): "The perceptible good resulting from this change was the satisfaction arising from being delivered in one day from a herd of insignificant men, mostly without any merit or shadow of capacity and to who the administration of department and arrondissement had been surrendered for the past ten years. As nearly all of them sprung from the lowest ranks in society, they were only the more disposed to make the weight of their authority felt."]

2310 (return)
[ Guyot, "RÉpertoire de jurisprudence" (1785), article King: "It is a maxim of feudal law that the veritable ownership of lands, the domain, directum dominium, is vested in the dominant seignior or suzerain. The domain in use, belonging to the vassal or tenant, affords him really no right except to its produce."]

2311 (return)
[ Luchaire," Histoire des institutions monarchiques de la France sous les premiers CapÉtiens," I., 28, 46. (Texts of Henry I., Philip I., Louis VI., and Louis VII.) "A divine minister."—(Kings are) "servants of the kingdom of God."—"Gird on the ecclesiastical sword for the punishment of the wicked."—"Kings and priests alone, by ecclesiastical ordination, are made sacred by the anointing of holy oils."]

2312 (return)
[ "The Revolution," III., p.94. (Laffont II, p. 75)]

2313 (return)
[ Janssen, "L'Allemagne À la fin du moyen Âge" (French translation), I., 457. (On the introduction of Roman law into Germany.)—Declaration of the jurists at the Diet of Roncaglia: "Quod principi placuit, legis habet vigorem."—Edict of Frederick I., 1165: "Vestigia praedecessorum suorum, divorum imperatorum, magni Constantini scilicet et Justiniani et Valentini,... sacras eorum leges,... divina oracula.... Quodcumque imperator constituerit, vel cognoscens decreverit, vel edicto praeceperit, legem esse constat."—Frederick II.: "Princeps legibus solutus est."—Louis of Bavaria: "Nos qui sumus supra jus."]

2314 (return)
[ Guyot, ibid., article RÉgales. "The great 'rÉgales,' majora regalia, are those which belong to the King, jure singulari et proprio, and which are incommunicable to another, considering that they cannot be divorced from the scepter, being the attributes of sovereignty, such as... the making of laws, the interpretation or change of these, the last appeal from the decisions of magistrates, the creation of offices, the declaration of war or of peace,... the coining of money, the augmentation of titles or of values, the imposition of taxes on the subjects,... the exemption of certain persons from these, the award of pardon for crimes,... the creation of nobles, the foundation of universities,... the assembling of the États-gÉnÉraux or provinciaux, etc."—Bossuet, "Politique tirÉe de l'Écriture sainte": The entire state exists in the person of the prince."—Louis XIV., "Æuvres," I., 50 (to his son): "You should be aware that kings can naturally dispose fully and freely of all possessions belonging as well to persons of the church as to laymen, to make use of at all times with wise economy, that is to say, according to the general requirements of their government."—Sorel, "L'Europe et la RÉvolution franÇaise," I., 231 (Letter of the "intendant" Foucault): "It is an illusion, which cannot proceed from anything but blind preoccupation, that of making any distinction between obligations of conscience and the obedience which is due to the King."]

2315 (return)
[ "The Ancient RÉgime," p.9 and following pages.—"Correspondance de Mirabeau et du Comte de le Marck," II., 74 (Note by Mirabeau, July 3, 1790): "Previous to the present revolution, royal authority was incomplete: the king was compelled to humor his nobles, to treat with the parliaments,, to be prodigal of favors to the court."]

2316 (return)
[ "The Revolution," III., p.318. (Laff.II. p. 237-238).—" The Ancient RÉgime," p. 10 (Laff. I. 25n.) Speech by the Chancellor SÉguier, 1775: "Our kings have themselves declared that they are fortunately powerless to attack property."]

2317 (return)
[ Rousseau's text in the "Contrat Social."—On the meaning and effect of this principle cf "The Revolution," I., 217 and following pages, and III., book VI., ch. I. Laff. 182-186 et II. 47 to 74).]

2318 (return)
[ The opinion, or rather the resignation which confers omnipotence on the central power, goes back to the second half of the fifteenth century, after the Hundred Years' war, and is due to that war; the omnipotence of the king was then the only refuge against the English invaders, and the ravages of the Écorcheurs.—Cf. Fortescue, "In leges AngliÆ," and" "The Difference between an Absolute and a Limited Monarchy" (end of the fifteenth century), on the difference at this date between the English and the French government.—The same decision is found in the dispatches of the Venetian ambassadors of this date: "In France everything is based on the will of the king. Nobody, whatever might be his conscientious scruples, would dare express an opinion opposed to his. The French respect their king to such an extent that they would not only sacrifice their property for him, but again their souls." (Janssen, "L'Allemagne À la fin du moyen Âge. I. 484.)—As to the passage of the monarchical to the democratic idea, we see it plainly in the following quotations from Restif de la Bretonne: "I entertained no doubt that the king could legally oblige any man to give me his wife or his daughter, and everybody in my village (Sacy in Burgundy) thought so too." ("Monsieur Nicolas," I., 443.)—In relation to the September massacres: "No, I do not pity them, those fanatical priests... When a community or its majority wants anything, it is right. The minority is always culpable, even when right morally. Common sense is that is needed to appreciate that truth. It is indisputable that the nation has the power to sacrifice even an innocent person." ("Nuits de Paris," XVth, p.377.)]

2319 (return)
[ "The Revolution," III., 393. (Laff. II. p. 291)]

2320 (return)
[ "Contrat Social," book 1st, ch. III.: "It is accordingly essential that, for the enunciation of the general will, no special organization should exist in the State, and that the opinion of each citizen should accord with that. Such was the unique and sublime law of the great Lycurgus."]

2321 (return)
[ "The Revolution," I., 170. (Laff. I. 433.)]

2322 (return)
[ Ibid., II., 93; III., 78-82. (Laff. I. p. 632 and II. pp. 65-68.)]

2323 (return)
[ "Correspondance de Mirabeau et du Comte de la Marck,"II., 74 (Letter of Mirabeau to the King, July 3, 1790): "Compare the new state of things with the ancient rÉgime.... One portion of the acts of the national assembly (and that the largest) is evidently favorable to monarchical government. Is it to have nothing, then, to have no parliaments, no provincial governments, no privileged classes, no clerical bodies, no nobility? The idea of forming one body of citizens would have pleased Richelieu: this equalized surface facilitates the exercise of power. Many years of absolute rule could not have done so much for royal authority as this one year of revolution."—Sainte-Beuve, "Port-Royal," V., 25 (M. Harlay conversing with the supÉrieure of Port-Royal): "People are constantly talking about Port-Royal, about these Port-Royal gentlemen: the King dislikes whatever excites talk. Only lately he caused M. Arnaud to be informed that he did not approve of the meetings at his house; that there is no objection to his seeing all sorts of people indifferently like everybody else, but why should certain persons always be found in his rooms and such an intimate association among these gentlemen?... The King does not want any rallying point; a headless assemblage in a State is always dangerous."—Ibid., p.33: "The reputation of this establishment was too great. People were anxious to put their children in it. Persons of rank sent theirs there. Everybody expressed satisfaction with it. This provided it with friends who joined those of the establishment and who together formed a platoon against the State. The King would not consent to this: he regarded such unions as dangerous in a State."]

2324 (return)
[ "Napoleon Ire et ses lois civiles," by HonorÉ PÉrouse, 280: Words of Napoleon: "I have for a long time given a great deal of thought and calculation to the re-establishment of the social edifice. I am to-day obliged to watch over the maintenance of public liberty. I have no idea of the French people becoming serfs."—"The prefects are wrong in straining their authority."—"The repose and freedom of citizens should not depend on the exaggeration or arbitrariness of a mere administrator."—"Let authority be felt by the people as little as possible and not bear down on them needlessly."—(Letters of January 15, 1806, March 6, 1807, January 12, 1809, to FouchÉ, and of March 6, 1807, to Regnault.)—Thibaudeau, "MÉmoires sur le Consulat," P. 178 (Words of the first consul before the council of state): "True civil liberty depends on the security of property. In no country can the rate of the tax-payer be changed every year. A man with 3000 francs income does not know how much he will have left to live on the following year; his entire income may be absorbed by the assessment on it... A mere clerk, with a dash of his pen, may overcharge you thousands of francs... Nothing has ever been done in France in behalf of real estate. Whoever has a good law passed on the cadastre (official valuation of all the land in France) will deserve a statue."]

2325 (return)
[ HonorÉ PÉrouse, Ibid, 274 (Speech of Napoleon to the council of state on the law on mines):" "Myself, with many armies at my disposition, I could not take possession of any one's field, for the violation of the right of property in one case would be violating it in all. The secret is to have mines become actual property, and hence sacred in fact and by law."—Ibid., 279:" "What is the right of property? It is not only the right of using but, again, of abusing it. ... One must always keep in mind the advantage of owning property. The best protection to the owner of property is the interest of the individual; one may always rely on his activity.... A government makes a great mistake in trying to be too paternal; liberty and property are both ruined by over-solicitude."—"If the government prescribes the way in which property shall be used it no longer exists.".—Ibid., 284 (Letters of Aug.21 and Sept. 7, 1809, on expropriations by public authority): "It is indispensable that the courts should supervise, stop expropriation, receive complaints of and guarantee property-owners against the enterprises of our prefects, our prefecture councils and all other agents.... Expropriation is a judicial proceeding.... I cannot conceive how France can have proprietors if anybody can be deprived of his field simply by an administrative decision."—In relation to the ownership of mines, to the cadastre, to expropriation, and to the portion of property which a man might bequeath, Napoleon was more liberal than his jurists. Madame de StaËl, "Dix annÉes d'exil," ch. XVIII. (Napoleon conversing with the tribune Gallois): "Liberty consists of a good civil code, while modern nations care for nothing but property."—"Correspondance," letter to FouchÉ, Jan. 15, 1805. (This letter gives a good summary of his ideas on government.) "In France, whatever is not forbidden is allowed, and nothing can be forbidden except by the laws, by the courts, or police measures in all matters relating to public order and morality."]

2326 (return)
[ Roederer, "Æuvres complÈtes," III., 339 (Speech by the First Consul, October 21, 1800): "Rank, now, is a recompense for every faithful service—the great advantage of equality, which has converted 20,000 lieutenancies, formerly useless in relation to emulation, into the legitimate ambition and honorable reward of 400,000 soldiers."—Lafayette, "MÉmoires," V., 350: "Under Napoleon, the soldiers said, he has been promoted King of Naples, of Holland, of Sweden, or of Spain, as formerly it was said that a than had been promoted sergeant in this or that company."]

2327 (return)
[ "The Ancient RÉgime," book I., ch.2, the Structure of Society, especially pp.19-21. (Laff. I. p. 21-22)]

2328 (return)
[ MÉmorial de Sainte-HÉlÈne"—Napoleon, speaking of his imperial organization, said that he had made the most compact government, one with the quickest circulation and the most nervous energy, that ever existed. And, he remarked, nothing but this would have answered in overcoming the immense difficulties around us, and for effecting the wonderful things we accomplished. The organization of prefectures, their action, their results, were admirable and prodigious. The same impulsion affected at the same time more than forty millions of men, and, aided by centers of local activity, the action was as rapid at every extremity as at the heart."]

2329 (return)
[ "The Ancient RÉgime," book III., chs. 2 and 3. (Laff. I, pp. 139 to 151 and pp. 153 to 172.)]

2330 (return)
[ Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chs. I, 2, 3, and 13.—Duruy, "Histoire des Romains" (illustrated edition), tenth period, chs. 82, 83, 84, and 85; twelfth period, chs. 95 and 99; fourteenth period, ch. 104.—(The reader will find in these two excellent works the texts and monuments indicated to which it is necessary to resort for a direct and satisfactory impression.)]

2331 (return)
[ See in Plutarch (Principles of Political Government) the situation of a Greek city under the Antonines.]

2332 (return)
[ Gibbon, ch. 10.—Duruy, ch. 95. (Decrease of the population of Alexandria under Gallien, according to the registers of the alimentary institution, letter of the bishop Dionysius.)]

2333 (return)
[ "Digest," I., 4, I.: "Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem, utpote, cum lege regia, quÆ de imperio ejus lata est, populus ei et in eum omne suum imperium et potestatem conferat. Quodcumque igitur imperator per epistolam et subscriptionem statuit, vel cognoscens decrevit, vel de plano interlocutus est, vel edicto prÆcepit, legis habet vigorem." (Extracts from Ulpian.)—Gaius, Institutes, I., 5: "Quod imperator constituit, non dubium est quin id vicem legis obtineat, quum ipse imperator per legem imperium obtineat."]

2334 (return)
[ "Digest," I, 2. (Extracts from Ulpian): "Jus est a justitia appellatum; nam, ut eleganter Celsus definit, jus est ars boni et Æqui. Cujus merito quis nos sacerdotes appellat: justitiam namque colimus, et boni et Æqui notitiam profitemur, Æquum ab iniquo separantes, licitum ab illicito discernentes,... veram, nisi fallor, philosophiam, non simulatam affectantes.... Juris prÆcepta sunt hÆc: honeste vivere, alterum non lÆdere, suum cuique tribuere."—cf. Duruy, 12th period, ch. 87.]

2335 (return)
[ Cf., on this immemorial principle of the entire body of Roman public law, cf. Fustel de Coulanges, "Histoire des institutions politiques et privÉes de l'ancienne France," vol. I., book II., ch. I, p.66 and following pages.]

2336 (return)
[ Read the "Notitia dignitatum tam civilium quam militarium in partibus orientis et occidentis." It is the imperial almanac for the beginning of the fifth century. There are eleven ministers at the centre, each with his bureaux, divisions, subdivisions and squads of superposed functionaries,]

2337 (return)
[ Cf. Piranesi's engravings.]

2338 (return)
[ Cf., among other clues see Dante's: "De Monarchia".]

2339 (return)
[ We can trace in Napoleon's brain and date the formation of this leading idea. At first, it is simply a classic reminiscence, as with his contemporaries; but suddenly it takes a turn and has an environment in his mind which is lacking in theirs, and which prevents the idea from remaining a purely literary phrase. From the beginning he speaks of Rome in the fashion of a Rienzi. (Proclamation of May 20, 1796.) "We are the friends of every people, and especially of the Brutuses, the Scipios, and of the great men whom we have chosen as models. To re-establish the Capitol, to place there with honor the statues of heroes who render it famous, to arouse the Roman people benumbed by centuries of slavery, such will be the fruit of our victories."—Fifteen months afterwards, on becoming master of Italy, his historic meditations turn into positive ambition henceforth, the possession of Italy and of the Mediterranean is to be with him a central and preponderant idea. (Letter to the Directory, Aug. 16, 1797, and correspondence on the subject of Corsica, Sardinia, Naples, and Genoa; letters to the pasha of Scutari, to the Maniotes, etc.) "The islands of Corfu, Zante, and Cephalonia are of more interest to us than all Italy put together.... The Turkish empire is daily tottering; the possession of these islands will enable us to support it as long as possible, or to take our portion of it. The time is not remote when we shall feel that, for the real destruction of England, we must get possession of Egypt." Formerly, the Mediterranean was a Roman lake; it must become a French lake. (Cf. "Souvenirs d'un SexagÉnaire," by Arnault, vol. IV., p.102, on his dream, in 1798, of making Paris a colossal Rome.)—At this same date, his conception of the State is fixed and wholly Roman. (Conversations with Miot, June 1797, and letter to Talleyrand, Sep. 19, 1797.) "I do not see but one thing in fifty years well defined, and that is the sovereignty of the people.... The organization of the French nation is still only sketched out....The power of the government, with the full latitude I give to it, should be considered as really representing the nation." In this government, "the legislative power, without rank in the republic, deaf and blind to all around it, would not be ambitious and would no longer inundate us with a thousand chance laws, worthless on account of their absurdity." It is evident that he describes in anticipation his future senate and legislative corps.—Repeatedly, the following year, and during the expedition into Egypt, he presents the Romans as an example to his soldiers, and views himself as a successor to Scipio and CÆsar.—(Proclamation of June 22, 1798.): "Be as tolerant to the ceremonies enjoined by the Koran as you are for the religion of Moses and Jesus. The Roman legions protected all religions."—(Proclamation of May 10, 1798.) "The Roman legions that you have often imitated but not yet equaled fought Carthage in turn on this wall and in the vicinity of Zama."—Carthage at this time is England: his hatred of this community of merchants which destroys his fleet at Aboukir, which forces him to raise the siege of Saint-Jean d'Acre, which holds on to Malta, which robs him of his substance, his patrimony, his Mediterranean, is that of a Roman consul against Carthage; it leads him to conquer all western Europe against her and to "resuscitate the empire of the Occident." (Note to Otto, his ambassador at London, Oct.. 23, 1802.)—Emperor of the French, king of Italy, master of Rome, suzerain of the Pope, protector of the confederation of the Rhine, he succeeds the German emperors, the titularies of the Holy Roman Empire which has just ended in 1806; he is accordingly the heir of Charlemagne and, through Charlemagne, the heir of the ancient CÆsars.—In fact, he reproduces the work of the ancient CÆsars by analogies of imagination, situation and character, but in a different Europe, and where this posthumous reproduction can be only an anachronism.]

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[ "Correspondance," note for M. Cretet, minister of the interior, April 12, 1808.]

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[ Metternich, "MÉmoires," I., 107 (Conversations with Napoleon,, 1810): "I was surprised to find that this man, so wonderfully endowed, had such completely false ideas concerning England, its vital forces and intellectual progress. He would not admit any ideas contrary to his own, and sought to explain these by prejudices which he condemned."—Cf. Forsyth, "History of the Captivity of Napoleon at Saint-Helena," III., 306, (False calculations of Napoleon at Saint-Helena based on his ignorance of the English parliamentary system,) and Stanislas Girardin, III., 296, (Words of the First Consul, Floreal 24, year XI, quoted above.)]

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[ Cf., amongst other documents, his letter to Jerome, King of Westphalia, October 15, 1807, and the constitution he gives to that kingdom on that date, and especially titles 4 to 12: "The welfare of your people concerns me, not only through the influence it may exercise on your fame and my own, but likewise from the point of view of the general European system.... Individuals who have talent and are not noble must enjoy equal consideration and employment from you. ... Let every species of serfage and of intermediary lien between the sovereign and the lowest class of people be abolished. The benefits of the code Napoleon, the publicity of proceedings, the establishment of juries, will form so many distinctive characteristics of your monarchy."—His leading object is the suppression of feudalism, that is to say, of the great families and old historic authorities. He relies for this especially on his civil code: "That is the great advantage of the code;... it is what has induced me to preach a civil code and made me decide on establishing it." (Letter to Joseph, King of Naples, June 5, 1806.)—"The code Napoleon is adopted throughout Italy. Florence has it, and Rome will soon have it." (Letter to Joachim, King of the Two Sicilies, Nov. 27, 1808.)—"My intention is to have the Hanseatic towns adopt the code Napoleon and be governed by it from and after the 1st of January."—The same with Dantzic: "Insinuate gently and not by writing to the King of Bavaria, the Prince-primate, the grand-dukes of Hesse-Darmstadt and of Baden, that the civil code should be established in their states by suppressing all customary law and confining themselves wholly to the code Napoleon." (Letter to M. de Champagny, Oct. 31, 1807.)—"The Romans gave their laws to their allies. Why should not France have its laws adopted in Holland?... It is equally essential that you should adopt the French monetary system." (Letter to Louis, King of Holland, Nov. 13, 1807.)—To the Spaniards: "Your nephews will honor me as their regenerator." (Allocution addressed to Madrid Dec. 9, 1808.)—"Spain must be French. The country must be French and the government must be French." (Roederer, III., 529, 536, words of Napoleon, Feb. 11, 1809.)—In short, following the example of Rome, which had Latinized the entire Mediterranean coast, he wanted to render all western Europe French. The object was, as he declared, "to establish and consecrate at last the empire of reason and the full exercise, the complete enjoyment of every human faculty." (MÉmorial.)]