Napoleon in his own words from the French of Jules Bertaut

NAPOLEON IN HIS OWN WORDS

pllUlliniHlll/llTIiniDIJiTITI

NAPOLEON

In His Own Words

FROM THE FRENCH OF

JULES BERTAUT

Translated by Herbert Edward Law
and Charles Lincoln Rhodes

Authorized Edition

CHICAGO

A. C. McCLURG & CO.

1916

REPLACFNG

Copyright

A. C. McClurg & Co.
1916

Published June, 1916

Copyrighted in Great Britain

W. F. HALL PRINTING COMPANY, CHICAGO

CONTENTS

PAGE

Author's Preface ix

Translators' Preface xxi

The Character of Napoleon . . . . . xxv

- ' " • •' ' r' '

CHAPTER

I On Success I

II Psychology and Morals . II

III Love and Marriage 28

IV Things Political 35

V Concerning the Fine Arts .... 66

VI Administration 81

VII Concerning Religion 107

VIII War 116

IX Sociology 140

Notes 149

[vii]

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

THIS collection of Napoleonic aphor-
isms is not the first attempt of the
kind that has been made. The genius of
Napoleon has always challenged the atten-
tion of historians, as it has that of the
unpretending curious and lovers of strong
and beautiful maxims; and following the
Restoration, as after the rebirth of Imperi-
alism under Napoleon in, there were those
who diligently collected these odds and ends
of the Emperor's thoughts. However, if
this attempt to popularize these reflections
of genius is not entirely new, I do not think
any other has been undertaken with the
same care and candor.

We are now sufficiently distant from Na-
poleon to judge him with the dispassionate-
ness of an age appreciative, but careful to
do justice. And just because there is little
concerning this great man which is not now
known, we are able to classify in a system-
[ix]

Napoleon in His Own Words

atic way the products of his mind. With-
out attempting a too rigid classification,
therefore, I have attempted to present the
diverse aspects of the Napoleonic mentality,
and to view him successively in his charac-
ter of professor of psychology and morals,
of politics and administration; as an au-
thority on love and marriage; as a patron of
the arts ; as a soldier and as a sociologist.

The first thing that strikes one in reading
these thoughts, these sentiments, these max-
ims, is the constant concern for sovereign
authority which they reveal.

Napoleon, in imagination, was constantly
concerned with the good of his subjects.
Whether in his literary works, properly so
called, or in his immense correspondence or
in his conversation or in his public speeches
or in his St. Helena confidences, he has taken
occasion to express himself on a multitude
of problems touching religion, science,
morals, art, politics and sociology. And
always he does it as a sovereign, as a master
conscious of his authority, obsessed with
the weight of his extraordinary responsibil-
ity and of the duty that devolved upon him.

Only rarely is his attention swerved from
[x]

Author's Preface

the attainment of the final solution of a
social or moral problem. Almost always a
sure instinct brings him back to the stead-
fast aim of his efforts, and these efforts,
when they are analyzed, have no other aim
than a transcendental utilitarianism. To
bring to bear constantly throughout every
foot of the Empire, in every soul under his
authority, the powers of all for the aggran-
dizement and prosperity of the nation, that
was his unheralded but real anxiety and
purpose. To compel every citizen to render
all that he is capable of rendering of social
usefulness, to drag from men, in spite of
themselves and by an iron compulsion, all
that they possess of moral wealth and in-
fluence, to watch unceasingly the play of
institutions and their machinery, from their
simplest to their most intricate mechanism,
that nothing fail of the particular work as-
signed to it — that was his constant pur-
pose.

We need not be astonished therefore if
this obsession constantly betrays itself in the
seemingly unrelated subjects of psychology
and morals. Nor ought we to be surprised
to find among aphorisms relating to love,
[xi]

Napoleon in His Own Words

this opinion of Napoleon concerning wom-
en : " The most important woman in the
world, living or dead, is the one who has
borne the most children ; " or among those
concerning Christianity, " The Christian
religion will always be the firmest support
of every government clever enough to make
it serve it; " or among those concerning art,
" Tragedy is the school of genius; it is the
duty of sovereigns to encourage and support
it;" or again, "Books are too argumen-
tative not to corrupt a people by dishabitu-
ating it from fact."

These are the beliefs of a sovereign who
gives his thought chiefly to the play and
interplay of men and things on the stability
and power of the state. Truth never ap-
pears naked to such a mind; she is always
more or less draped. He never sees truth
objectively, but always in relation to some
one or some thing.

But what, in the last analysis, is this util-
itarianism which is the essence of Napo-
leon's genius? It is, in a word, the art of
adaptation carried to its highest expression.
To know how to create " the man for the
place/' as the trenchant English saying has
[xii]

Author's Preface

it, and to get the supremest possible out
of him — such is the whole secret of the
Napoleonic necromancy. This genius re-
quires for its highest exercise certain quali-
ties which the Emperor possessed in the
maximum of intensity.

In the first place he had an extraordinary
gift of insight. Napoleon was first of all a
dissector of souls — that is easily seen in run-
ning through the chapter on psychology and
that on politics. It is evident also in the
maxims collected under the title " Adminis-
tration."

Let us reflect that he had lived through
the most astounding years of history, those
during which the human heart revealed it-
self in all its nakedness; that he had known
things at their worst, and seen at close range
the most sinister souls. But his knowledge
of the human being was not only of a
rigorous exactitude, he also knew the deep
furrows which nationality plows in tem-
perament; and, in particular, some of the
judgments of the French character he has
expressed have the quality of finality.

Moreover his insight has no tinge of
cruelty. He was himself too quivering with
[xiii]

Napoleon in His Own Words

life to linger a pessimist at the spectacle of
humanity. On the other hand he visions too
clearly not to take advantage at once of
what he sees or to profit by his experience.
For example, he observes that, " Men are
greedy for emotion," and he adds at once,
" their enthusiasm is his who can cleverly
arouse it." He says, " It is important to
recognize human weakness," but he ex-
claims as a conclusion, " and turn it to your
advantage rather than to oppose it." Thus
always, in him, policy followed close on
psychology.

But keen insight alone is not sufficient to
continually fit men for the places to be
filled. It does not suffice to recognize ability
in men ; it is necessary to inspire them. Fol-
lowing insight, comes guidance. That is the
difficult thing. No mind was more single
in its will, no energy more irresistible than
his. With him, to form a purpose was to
execute it. His mind could conceive of
neither obstacles from within nor from
without which could swerve it. While his
prudence might suggest temporary yielding
to circumstances, he avowed it with a sort
of superior artlessness : " Pretexts never
[xiv]

Author's Preface

fail the man who has the power to do what
he pleases." However, read and re-read
these aphorisms — those which are the fruit
of long experience, as his maxims of war,
those which were the spontaneous outburst
of the moment, or those which were the
result of ripened thought — the positive way
he says them gives them the seal of au-
thenticity.

But in addition to the power of insight,
and the gift of authority, a certain recog-
nition of the supremacy of moral ideas was
necessary thoroughly to understand the
citizen-subjects of the Empire, and to fore-
see how they would adjust themselves to
any given set of conditions. The Emperor
recognized this supremacy of moral ideas;
not as a deep and abiding conviction, nor as
a superstitious belief. The man who said
that a monarch ought to be acquainted with
all religions in order to be ready, on occa-
sion, to embrace them all, had but a modi-
cum of superstition, moral or religious. But
here, again, Napoleon's instinct for policy
came into play, and he realized that any
empire in which sound moral principles,
were not given free scope, was bound to fall,
[xv]

Napoleon in His Own Words

For him, therefore, outwardly to conform
to morality, to preach morality, to defend
it, and to impose it on men and to require
it of them by all possible means, was merely
calculation. The result of it he intended
should be, everywhere and always, a realiza-
tion of the thought expressed by that char-
acter in Italian comedy who is made to say,
" I will make you happy in spite of your-
selves." Similarly, Napoleon might have
said to his subjects, " I will make you
moral, religious, and honest in spite of your-
selves," adding to himself, " because such is
to the supreme interest of the Empire."

Every means is good to him which will
firmly fix these truths in the French mind;
and he uses all means with consummate
adroitness. When the Grenadier Gobin
committed suicide for love, Napoleon at
once addressed his troops thus : " A soldier
ought to overcome the melancholy and bit-
terness of hopeless passion; to abandon
himself to disappointment without resis-
tance, to kill himself in order to escape from
himself, is to abandon the field of battle
without gaining the victory." Thus he
shows by example to those willing to see it,
[xvi]

Authors Preface

that moral qualities are indispensable; and
Napoleon knew how to utilize all means to
arouse them. Thus was strengthened in
each soul the conviction that, in proportion
to his ability, it was the duty of each citizen
to cooperate for the grandeur and prosperity
of the country represented in the person of
the Emperor.

Such are the qualities indispensable to
one, who, through a supreme utilitarianism
would fashion men in his own image and
make of them the instruments of his dom-
ination. But important as these qualities
are, obvious as it is that they should be
found in a sovereign, they are still insuffi-
cient to accomplish supreme results. There
must be added to them a sense of harmony,
an artistic instinct for the sculpture and
design of the monument to be raised, a
searching vigilance careful of the smallest
details, leaving nothing to chance ; in a word,
that sense of form which Napoleon pos-
sessed in the highest degree, and which
makes him kin to the world's great artists.

I recall M. Paul Bourget, one day, in one
of those satisfying conversations in which
he excelled, developing the theory, that, as
[ xvii ]

Napoleon in His Own Words

the Emperor's family was of Tuscan origin
one would expect to find in him an artistic
sense, an appreciation of form, an inherited
sense of balance and harmony. And this
indeed it is easy to recognize in his work,
which though a little massive, perhaps, is
admirably proportioned.

This impression is never so vividly pre-
sented to my mind as in considering the
minute care for the smallest details, with
which Napoleon occupied himself with an
untiring passion. In his maxims regarding
war there will be found one which is ex-
tremely characteristic in this respect. It is
where he is speaking of a commanding gen-
eral's addresses to his troops, and of the
necessity of issuing them on the day before
the battle or the day before that. " It is
not," he says, " that addresses to an army
at the moment of action make soldiers
brave; their usefulness lies in their effect
on the course of the campaign, in neutraliz-
ing rumors, and in furnishing matter for
camp-fire talk." What a keen and compre-
hensive understanding of camp life this last
phrase reveals ! And it is strikingly typical,
as it is suggestive, of that creative imagina-
[ xviii ]

Authors Preface

tion which enabled Napoleon to foresee and
estimate the action and reaction of things
and of words, to their most distant conse-
quences. The care for detail is there, and
whoever possesses it to this degree is born
to achievement, no matter in what direction
his activities lead him.

These, it seems to me, are some of the
conclusions this book has to suggest. There
is no pretense that it gives a new presenta-
tion of Napoleon, his qualities or his de-
fects; but it will serve to recall and fix in
the memory some of those utterances, which,
after a hundred years, still describe the social
order, and which are the fruits of a mind
which gained them at a cost entitling them
to be called experience.

JULES BERTAUT

[xix]

TRANSLATORS' PREFACE

IT is now almost exactly a hundred years
since Waterloo. Every one of those
years has seen additions to the ever-growing
volume of Napoleonic literature. Opinion
regarding Napoleon is gradually becoming
clarified, as more and more the truth of
history is being separated from the interests,
the passions, and the limitations of knowl-
edge which have obscured it in the past.

This collection of Napoleon's sayings,
which M. Jules Bertaut has presented under
the title of Virilities, is one of the latest, as
in some respects it is one of the most im-
portant, of late contributions to the subject.
It is not that he has discovered new facts
about Napoleon. As he says himself, there
is probably little that concerns Napoleon
which is not now known. Because this is
so, we have been able to see Napoleon in
the light of fairly complete knowledge of
contemporaneous conditions. But what
[xxi]

Napoleon in His Own Words

M. Bertaut has done, is to enable us to see, as
it were, through Napoleon's own eyes. We
are able otherwise to know what Napoleon
did, and what were the circumstances that
influenced him. But herein M. Bertaut has
given us, in brief, it is true, and by illustra-
tion rather than in complete detail, what
Napoleon said about the things he did, the
reasons he gave for doing them (which are
often only the reasons he wanted believed),
and -the purposes he had in mind.

It is true that there is nothing in this
collection of Napoleon's sayings which has
not been published somewhere before in the
collected editions of his orders, his corre-
spondence, or his formal works. But they
are collated and made available here; and
they have this advantage over any similar
previous collection, that in making them,
M. Bertaut has had all the advantage of the
fuller knowledge we have of Napoleon than
any previous generation has had. Precisely
because little that concerns Napoleon is now
unknown, M. Bertaut has been able to make
his selections from the great mass of Na-
poleon's utterances in such a way as to pre-
sent most fully and clearly, within the limits
[xxii]

Translators' Preface

of space determined on, the workings of
Napoleon's mind — to get whatever light on
his character and motives his own words
can throw.

This work was well received by the
French people on its publication shortly be-
fore the outbreak of the present war; and
so it is believed it will be of interest to
Americans.

In translating, the effort has been made
to present Napoleon's thought in its English
garb so as to convey the sense that Na-
poleon's forceful, nervous, though not al-
ways accurate French, conveys to French
readers.

In the notes, nothing more has been at-
tempted than to put the average American
reader on an equal footing, as to allusion
and reference to matters of French history
or French literature or French experience,
with the average French reader, as we may
assume him to be. It is only natural to
suppose that the average French reader has
such a degree of familiarity with these as
will enable him to catch, understandingly,
Napoleon's allusions to them; just as the
average American reader would be able to
[ xxiii ]

Napoleon in His Own Words

catch, understandingly, equivalent allusions
and reference to our own history and litera-
ture. Hence the notes are confined, with at
most one or two exceptions, to matters of
French history or literature or national ex-
perience. As to allusions to men or things
of other countries or peoples, it is assumed
that the average American reader is already
on an equal footing, as to them, with the
French reader.

It has been attempted to give to American
readers just what M. Bertaut has given to
his countrymen.

HERBERT EDWARD LAW
CHARLES LINCOLN RHODES

[ xxiv ]

THE CHARACTER OF
NAPOLEON

NAPOLEON was a man of action.
His mind was cast in that mould
which sees in events, not the relations they
bear to each other as parts of a universe,
but their possibilities to him who can seize
them for his own benefit. His was not a
contemplative mind; he neither looked for,
nor studied, the causes of things, but the
effects. He has therefore written no phi-
losophy, though much cynical wisdom. Nor
did he speak or write to set men thinking,
but to influence their actions.

Though a man of action, few have writ-
ten more than he did. His correspondence,
in thirty-two volumes, the publication of
which was begun in 1858, is only a part of
the recorded mass of ideas which came
from his mind. What is included in this
little book is, therefore, but the merest frag-
ment of what there was to choose from,
[xxv]

Napoleon in His Own Words

But because Napoleon's mind and character
were of the cast and turn that they were,
what is here given will better serve its pur-
pose than would a much larger measure of
any other man's writings in regard to that
man.

Whoever expects to find consistency, or
continuity, in what Napoleon has written,
will be disappointed, because Napoleon had
no profound convictions to weave them-
selves like golden threads in the web of his
acts or his words. He was neither a phi-
losopher developing a system of philosophy,
nor a publicist seeking to guide the course
of events in accordance with an underlying
and permeating, but consistent body of phi-
losophical or scientific laws. He spoke or
wrote for the immediate effect of his words,
not for their future, or ultimate effect; nor
did he concern himself with any niceties of
consistency.

Being a man of action, he was constantly
doing things. To make the things he did
best serve the purpose for which he did
them, he felt called on, or found it con-
venient, to give some reason or explanation
for doing them. He was guided in the
[ xxvi ]

The Character of Napoleon

reason or explanation he gave, not by his
real reason or purpose, but by what he
thought would serve him best at the time.
Naturally, there could be neither consist-
ency nor continuity in it. There was in it,
however, himself, the mirror and reflec-
tion of both his moral and his mental char-
acter.

It is because of this characteristic of Na-
poleon's utterances, that a selection from
his writings, such as this of M. Bertaut's,
can have, and does have, a real and an effec-
tive value. Few great men can be appraised
by samples of their writings. This is par-
ticularly true of those whose greatness
consists in their gift of ideas or good works
to the world. But Napoleon's greatness was
in his genius for coordination, for accom-
plishment. It included, of course, the power
to vision great things — great in their mag-
nitude and in the power required to bring
them about. But this accomplishment add-
ed nothing, or little to the world's store.
His combinations were of what already
existed, and though incomparably great and
marvelous exhibitions of the power of the
human mind to do, they created nothing;
[ xxvii ]

Napoleon in His Own Words

and though he conquered half of Europe he
left France no bigger than he found it.

And so Napoleon's writings are no
measure of the man, because they neither
express his thought, nor measure his great-
ness. His thought was expressed in action,
and his greatness in accomplishment. But
his writings do express his estimate of
moral relationships and of mankind. Moral
obligations he looked on as superstitions,
useful in holding the world in order for the
benefit of himself or anyone else, who, free
from such superstitions, was able to exploit
it. His estimate of mankind was of crea-
tures obeying certain impulses and suscep-
tible to certain kinds of stimulus, and
therefore very suitable for the use and
diversion of one, who, like himself, knew
how to use and control them.

It is these things, these qualities, that his
writings present. Unconsciously he has be-
trayed himself in them. What was said for
its immediate effect, becomes a measure of
ulterior motive. Just as astronomers de-
duce from the aberrations in the movements
of the planets the laws of the sidereal uni-
verse, so, from the inconsistencies and
[ xxviii ]

The Character of Napoleon

contradictions of his recorded utterances
can be clearly deduced the dominating mo-
tives of his acts.

The great defect of Napoleon's character
was that he had no profound convictions of
duty or obligation or right; at any rate, no
profound convictions commensurate with
his intellectual powers. Therefore he had
nothing to guide him in the selection of
objects for accomplishment except the lust
and greed of power to do, which grew with
the growth, through exercise and expe-
rience, of that power. That is why there is
so much that is inexplicable particularly in
the later years of his career. He is ever
urged on by the unsatisfied power of accom-
plishment, without having profound moral
convictions to guide him either in the choice
of aim or means.

In this selection from Napoleon's record-
ed utterances, insignificant and fragmen-
tary as it is as compared with the whole
volume of them, can be seen clearly this
lack of profound convictions. In their place
are cynical half-truths, clever sophistry,
self-deception, because the depth and sound-
ness of the moral sense in mankind is un-
[ xxix ]

Napoleon in His Own Words

realized by Napoleon. It is because his
writings do not represent or measure his
accomplishment, but -do represent the qual-
ity of his moral fiber, that Napoleon can, in
this respect, be appraised by sample; and
this collection which M. Bertaut has made
is an excellent sample.

H. E. L.

C. L. R.

[ XXX ]

NAPOLEON IN HIS OWN WORDS

NAPOLEON

In His Own Words

I

ON SUCCESS

A PRINCE, criticised by his subjects,
should never attempt to justify him-
self to them.

Collective crimes incriminate no one.

The code of health for nations is not
that for individuals.

A sovereign ought always to confiscate
publicity for his own profit.

There are only two forces that unite men
— fear and interest. All great revolutions
originate in fear, for the play of interests
does not lead to accomplishment.

Napoleon in His Own Words

Audacity succeeds as often as it fails;
in life it has an even chance.

The superior man is never in anyone's
way.

Profit by the favors of Fortune while her
caprices favor you; fear only that she will
change out of spite; she is a woman.

Who saves his country violates no law.
Men, like paintings, need a favorable day.

There are so many laws that no one is
safe from hanging.

Success is the most convincing talker in
the world.

As a rule it is circumstances that make
men.

Impatience is a great obstacle to success;
he who treats everything with brusqueness
gathers nothing, or only immature fruit
which will never ripen.

[2]

On Success

Men are like numerals — they are given
value by their position.

Second-rate men, however ambitious,
have only commonplace ideas.

When a man is a favorite of Fortune she
never takes him unawares, and, however
astonishing her favors may be, she finds
him ready.

One must indeed be ignorant of the
methods of genius to suppose that it allows
itself to be cramped by forms. Forms are
for mediocrity, and it is fortunate that me-
diocrity can act only according to routine.
Ability takes its flight unhindered.

No one can disguise to himself the fact
that a dead man is nothing more than a dead
man, and a living man of the slightest pre-
tensions is stronger than the dead man's
memory. When a great man dies, one who
has rendered high service to his country,
the first feeling experienced is one of satis-
faction; a weight has been removed; ambi-
tions are freed (See Note i). We may

[3]

Napoleon in His Own Words

weep a year afterwards when agitations dis-
tract the country; but in the first access of
feeling there is not even a tinge of regret;
last wishes are unconsidered.

Conquerors should know the genius and
the language of every religion. They ought
to be Moslems in Egypt and Catholics in
France, to the extent, at least, of giving
sympathetic protection.

The publication of false news is a petty
means of producing important effects, but
one of which even cool heads cannot fore-
tell the exact results, since each one to whom
such news comes interprets it in accordance
with his prejudices and his partisanship.

In the eyes of empire builders men are
not men, but instruments.

Equality exists only in theory.

The secret of the power to command is to
be strong, because in strength there is
neither error nor illusion; it is truth in all
its nakedness.

[4]

On Success

Men are more easily governed through
their vices than through their virtues.

Correctly analyzed, political liberty is a
convenient fable invented by governments
to lull the governed.

The torment of precautions often exceeds
the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes
better to abandon one's self to destiny.

A sovereign obliged to respect the law
may be contributing to the loss of his realm.

A legislature is a serviceable means of
obtaining from a people what the king
might not dare ask of them.

Nothing has ever been established except
by the sword.

Noisy festivals are a necessity. Block-
heads love noise, and the multitude are
blockheads.

The heart of a statesman should be in
his head.

[5]

Napoleon in His Own Words

A new-born government must dazzle.

In planning one's course in life, we should
always reserve the right to laugh tomorrow
at the ideas of yesterday.

Never depend on the multitude, full of
instability and whims; always take precau-
tions against it.

Events all hang by a hair. The clever
man profits by everything, neglecting noth-
ing that may give him any advantage. The
less clever, by slighting some seeming trifle,
loses all.

From triumph to downfall is but a step.
I have seen a trifle decide the most im-
portant issues in the gravest affairs.

It is only by prudence, wisdom, and
dexterity, that great ends are attained and
obstacles overcome. Without these quali-
ties nothing succeeds.

There are different ways of assassinating
a man — by pistol, sword, poison, or moral
[6]

On Success

assassination. They are the same in their
results only that the last is the more cruel.

By taking for your justification the pre-
tended principle of general utility you can
go to whatever lengths you want.

A lie is useless, since it deceives but once.

Nature in creating certain men designed
them for subordinate positions.

Great men are meteors, who, by their
burning, light the world.

If aggressors are wrong above, they are
right here below.

There are vices and virtues of circum-
stances.

Since the discovery of printing the in-
telligent are called on to govern ; and those
who govern, slave.

He who knows how to flatter also knows
how to slander.

[7]

Napoleon in His Own Words

The consummate courtier must be one
who scorns the object of his flatteries, and
is ever ready to destroy him.

There are crises where the good of the
nation requires the condemnation of the in-
nocent.

Those who cannot profit by circumstances
are ninnies.

The honest are so easy going and rogues
so alert, that it is often necessary to employ
rogues.

Put a rogue in the limelight and he will
act like an honest man.

It is easier to destroy than to restore
confidence.

The man fitted for affairs and authority
never considers individuals, but things and
their consequences.

A congress of the powers is deceit agreed
on between diplomats — it is the pen of
[8]

On Success

Machiavelli combined with the scimitar of
Mahomet.

Destiny urges me to a goal of which I
am ignorant. Until that goal is attained I
am invulnerable, unassailable. When Des-
tiny has accomplished her purpose in me, a
fly may suffice to destroy me.

Necessity dominates inclination, will, and
right.

The most dangerous counselor is self-
love.

To be a successful conqueror one must
be cruel.

The strong man is the one who is able
to intercept at will the communication be-
tween the senses and the mind.

Men who hesitate never succeed in their
undertakings.

One never mounts so high as when one
does not know how high he is going.

[9]

Napoleon in His Own PFords

What is begun in feebleness belongs of
right to audacity, which makes it legiti-
mately its own by seizing it.

There is nothing so hard to harness as a
people which has already shaken off the
pack saddle.

The only thing to be done with those one
is no longer able to recompense, is to dis-
grace them.

II

PSYCHOLOGY AND MORALS

MEN have their virtues and their vices,
their heroisms and their perversities ;
men are neither wholly good nor wholly bad,
but possess and practice all that there is of
good and bad here below. Such is the
general rule. Temperament, education, the
accidents of life, are modifying factors.
Outside of this, everything is ordered ar-
rangement, everything is chance. Such has
been my rule of expectation and it has
usually brought me success.

Man is only a more perfect and better
reasoning animal.

Whatever misanthropists may say, in-
grates and the perverse are exceptions in the
human species.

A philosopher has contended that men
are born wicked; it would be a very

Napoleon in His Own Words

difficult matter and a useless one to. deter-
mine by inquiry whether he is right. But
this much is certain, the great mass of
society are far from being depraved; for
if a large majority were criminal or in-
clined to break the laws, where would the
force or power be to prevent or constrain
them? And herein is the real blessing of
civilization, because this happy result has its
origin in her bosom, growing out of her very
nature.

Man seldom acts wholly true to his char-
acter; he yields to the violence of his feel-
ings, or is carried away by passion.

Our physical qualities are developed by
our dangers and our needs.

When small men attempt great enter-
prises, they always end by reducing them to
the level of their mediocrity.

What power there is in imagination — in
the imagination of men ! The English sail-
ors at St. Helena did not know me, had
never seen me, only heard of me, yet what
[12]

Psychology and Morals

did they not see in me, and what did they
not do in my behalf ! And the same strange
spectacle is repeated in every age, in every
country, in every century. Such is fanat-
icism. Yes, imagination governs the world.

Man loves the marvelous. It has an irre-
sistible charm for him. He is always ready
to leave that with which he is familiar to
pursue vain inventions.

What are we? What is the future? What
is the past? What magic fluid envelops
us and hides from us the things it is most
important for us to know? We are born,
we live, and we die in the midst of the
marvelous.

To do all that one is able to do, is to be
a man ; to do all that one would like to do,
would be to be a god.

Man achieves in life only by commanding
the capabilities nature has given him, or by
creating them within himself by education
and by knowing how to profit by the difficul-
ties encountered.

[13]

Napoleon in His Own Words

It is said that when we know the type
of a man we have the key to his conduct.
This is untrue. A thoroughly honest man
may do an evil act; or another an unjust
act, without being wicked. In such cases
the man hardly ever acts in accordance with
his type, but from some secret purpose,
which up to that moment has been hid-
den in the deepest recesses of his heart.
It is a mistake, too, to say that the face is
the mirror of the soul. The truth is, men
are very hard to know, and yet, not to be
deceived, we must judge them by their pres-
ent actions, but for the present only.

A mind without memory is a fortress
without a garrison.

One is more certain to influence men, to
produce more effect on them, by absurdities
than by sensible ideas.

It is not true that men never change;
they change for the worse, as well as for
the better. It is not true they are ungrate-
ful; more often the benefactor rates his
favors higher than their worth; and often

Psychology and Morals

too he does not allow for circumstances. If
few men have the moral force to resist
impulses, most men do carry within them-
selves the germs of virtues as well as of
vices, of heroism as well as of cowardice.
Such is human nature — education and cir-
cumstances do the rest.

Ordinarily men exercise their memory
much more than their judgment.

Men are sheep, they always follow the
leader.

How many really capable men are chil-
dren more than once during the day!

When we know our moral weakness we
ought to know how to care for our soul as
we know how to care for our leg or arm.

I am of the opinion that the good or bad
conduct of a child depends entirely on its
mother.

There is nothing so imperious as feeble-
ness which feels itself supported by force.

[15]

Napoleon in His Own Words

The superior man is not by nature impres-
sionable. We praise him, we blame him;
it matters little to him. It is to his own
judgment that he listens.

The shortcomings of children are often
the result of the bad education they have
received from their parents.

One does well only that which one does
one's self.

Good sense makes men capable. Self-
respect is the breeze which swells the sails
and wafts their barks into port.

Death is a dreamless sleep.

True character stands the test of emer-
gencies. Do not be mistaken, it is weak-
ness from which the awakening is rude.

Life is a fleeting dream that loses itself.

Life is strewn with so many dangers, and
can be the source of so many misfortunes,
that death is not the greatest of them.
[16]

Psychology and Morals

How many seemingly impossible things
have been accomplished by resolute men be-
cause they had to do, or die.

The private life of a man is a light by
which one may instructively read.

Men are greedy for emotion; their en-
thusiasm is his who can cleverly arouse it.

There is no strength without skill.

A man. becomes the creature of his uni-
form.

With audacity one can undertake any-
thing, but not do everything.

Interminable matters are those that pre-
sent no difficulties.

If success were not a chimera, it would
not be so alluring.

The fool has one great advantage over a
man of sense — he is always satisfied with
himself.

Napoleon in His Own Words

Force is never anything but force, en-
thusiasm never anything but enthusiasm.
But persuasiveness endures and imprints
itself on the heart.

We only believe the things we want to
believe.

To be believed, make the truth unbeliev-
able.

There are some people who behave
decently only toward their enemies.

Simpletons talk of the past, wise men of
the present, and fools of the future.

Patriotism is the first of virtues.

The ambition to rule over other minds
is the strongest of passions.

Most sentiments are traditions.

The man who practices virtue only in the
hope of gaining reputation, is toying with
vice.

Psychology and Morals

A man with neither courage nor bravery
is a mere thing.

I have no regard for those who affect to
despise death; the important thing is to
know how to endure the inevitable.

Each hour wasted in youth is a hazard
of misfortune taken for the future.

The superior man is undisturbed ; praised
or blamed, he goes on.

In a narrow sphere great men are blun-
derers.

Self-interest is the key to commonplace
actions.

Severity presumes more faults than it
represses.

Strong souls resist pleasures of the senses
as mariners shun reefs.

To debate in danger is to hold back in the
traces.

[19]

Napoleon in His Own Words

Adversity is the midwife of genius.

From wit to good sense is farther than
one thinks.

Nothing is more difficult than to decide.

A stroke of fate is like striking a money
balance; it indicates a man's real worth.

Nothing that degrades a man is useful
for long.

Happiness grows out of circumstances;
felicity out of affections.

There is nothing noble that is not great;
greatness and immensity make us overlook
many defects.

Chance takes account of all our follies.

Judgment matures as well in success as
in misfortunes.

Time is a necessary element. When Ar-
chimedes offered to raise the world with
[20]

Psychology and Morals

a lever and fulcrum, he required time. God
took seven days to create the universe.

Nothing is so rare as steadfast devotion.

Intelligence precedes force. Force itself
is nothing without intelligence. In the
heroic age the leader was the strongest man ;
with civilization he has become the most
intelligent of the brave.

In pardoning we rise above those who
insult us.

Of what blunders are not the vanity and
self love of an ignorant man capable.

The man of projects is always right in
drawing-rooms.

No man has friends; it is his good
fortune that has.

The fire of youth, the pride of blood, the
death of hope, all produce enthusiasts and
martyrs and bring forth courageous and
desperate decisions.

[21]

Napoleon in His Own Words

Temptation reaches the heart through
the eye; we are always tempted to yield to
what we admire.

It is asked why misfortunes feared often
affect us more than those actually experi-
enced. It is because, in imagination as in
mathematics, we cannot measure the power
of the unknown.

When one has never had reverses, he is
due to have them proportionate to his good
fortune.

How far short men fall from equaling
their pretensions! Do they always know,
themselves, what they are?

Genius does not transmit itself from pa-
rent to son. There has never been, so far as
I know, one single instance in all history of
two great poets, two great mathematicians,
two great conquerors, two great monarchs,
one of whom was a son of the other.

Genius is fire from heaven; but it rarely
finds a vessel ready to receive it.

[22]

Psychology and Morals

Morality is in itself a complete code.

True happiness, the only true strength,
all the consolations of mankind are in
religion and morality. Hence all moral
religions are beautiful. Aside from dogmas
more or less absurd, which, to understand,
we must know the people among whom
they originated, what is there in the Vedas,
the Koran, the old Testament, in Confucius,
in them all in a word? a pure morality —
that is to say, protection to the weak, respect
for the laws of the country, and a belief in
one God. But the Gospel alone offers mo-
rality freed from absurdities.

One must learn to forgive and not to hold
a hostile, bitter attitude of mind, which
offends those about us and prevents us
from enjoying ourselves ; one must recognize
human shortcomings and adjust himself to
them rather than to be constantly finding
fault with them.

It is not necessary to prohibit or encour-
age oddities of conduct which are not
harmful.

[23]

Napoleon in His Own Words

I despise ingratitude as the most infamous
defect of the heart.

Moralizing is very often only a disguise
for slander.

The best way to keep one's word is not
to give it.

Wounds given honor never heal; they
destroy the moral fiber.

It is not to be disputed that in the mar-
riage relation the oriental family is entirely
different from the occidental family. Moral
codes therefore are not universal. Man is
the minister of Nature, and social relations
follow racial differences.

We recognize an honest man by his con-
duct toward his wife, his family, and his
servants.

Has a man the right to kill him-
self? Yes, if his death will injure no one,
and life is a misfortune to him. When is
life a misfortune to a man? When it offers

[24]

Psychology and Morals

him nothing but suffering and sorrow; but
as suffering and sorrow change constantly,
there is no moment in life when a man has
the right to kill himself, except at the
moment of his death ; since then, only, is the
proof forthcoming that his life has been
only a web of misfortunes and suffering.
The man who, succumbing to the weight of
present ills, seeks death, does an injustice
to himself, yielding in despair and feeble-
ness to the fantasy of the moment, to which
he sacrifices all the possibilities of the future.

There are rogues sufficiently roguish to
act like honest men.

Suicide is the act of a gambler who has
lost everything, or of a ruined prodigal. It
has always been a maxim with me that a
man showed more true courage in support-
ing the ills of life than by ending it.

True heroism consists in rising superior
to misfortune.

The Grenadier Gobin committed suicide
for love. The circumstances offered a good

[25]

Napoleon in His Own Words

opportunity. It was the second event of the
kind that had happened in the corps within
a month. The First Consul directed that
there should be included in the orders to
the Guard : " That a soldier ought to over-
come the melancholy and bitterness of hope-
less passion; there is as much true courage
in suffering with constancy the despair of
the soul, as in standing firm under the fire
of a battery; to surrender to disappointment
without resisting, to commit suicide to
escape from it, is to abandon the field of
battle without having gained the victory/'

To give suitably is to honor ; to give much
is to corrupt

When a man has no courage, he neces-
sarily lacks head, and is unfit to command
either himself or others.

The human family has two virtues which
we cannot value too highly — courage in
man, and modesty in woman.

Let the night dissipate the injuries of the
day.

[26]

Psychology and Morals

There is no compromise with honor.

So much the worse for those who do not
believe in virtue.

Ill

LOVE AND MARRIAGE

FAMILY ties have always seemed to me
sacred. I have never been able to be-
lieve that we can break them without dis-
honor, and failing in that which is most
sacred to man.

In love the only safety is in flight.

Love is the occupation of the idle, the
distraction of the soldier, the danger of the
monarch.

Marriage ought not to be permitted
between those who have not known each
other more than six months.

The civil magistrate who would make im-
pressive the woman's promise of obedience
and fidelity, ought to have a formulary. It
ought to be emphasized that in leaving the
protection of the family the woman passes

[28]

Love and Marriage

under that of her husband. Magistrates
perform the marriage ceremony without
any solemnity. It altogether lacks impres-
siveness. It should be given a moral quality.
Observe the priests; they preach a sermon.
Even if it is not heard by the bridal couple
wholly occupied with other things, it is by
the others present.

Marriage is without doubt the perfect
social state.

Love is always the occupation of the idle
ranks of society.

In great crises it is the portion of wives
to make reverses supportable.

We will hear nothing in derogation of
women, we peoples of the Occident. We
hold them, which is a great mistake, as being
almost our own equals. The peoples of the
orient are wiser and juster than we. They
have declared them the natural property of
man. And, in effect, Nature has made them
our slaves. It is only because of our fool-
ishness that they have dared to pretend to

[29]

Napoleon in His Own Words

be our equals. They abuse their privileges
in order to corrupt and rule us. For one
who inspires us to good, there are a hundred
who lead us into folly.

Woman was given to man in order that
there might be children. Now one woman
alone cannot suffice a man for that purpose ;
she cannot be his wife while she is nursing;
she cannot be his wife while she is sick; she
ceases to be his wife when she is no longer
able to bear him children. Man, whom
Nature has limited neither by age nor by
any of these inconveniences, ought therefore
to have several wives.

If a man is unfaithful to his wife, con-
fesses it and repents of it, no consequences
result. The wife is angry, forgives, is
reconciled, sometimes exacting something
as the price of reconciliation. It is a differ-
ent matter if the infidelity is the wife's. She
will confess and repent of it in vain, for
who will guarantee that no consequences
will follow? The injury is irreparable. It
cannot be and ought not to be condoned.
It is therefore only the failure of judgment,

[30]

Love and Marriage

of general recognition and the defect of
education, which makes it possible for a
woman to believe herself equal in all things
to her husband. There is however nothing
dishonoring in the difference. Each have
their privileges and their obligations. Your
privileges, ladies, are beauty, grace, and
seductive power; your obligations, depend-
ence and submission.

And moreover of what can you complain
after all? Have we not accorded you a
soul? You know there are compensations
in philosophy. You pretend to equality?
But that is foolishness. Woman is our
property ; we are not hers, for she bears us
children but we do not bear her any. She
is therefore the man's property as the fruit
tree is the gardener's.

A beautiful woman appeals to the eye; a
good woman appeals to the heart. One is
a jewel, the other a treasure.

The man who allows himself to be gov-
erned entirely by his wife is neither himself
nor his wife; he is nothing.

[313

Napoleon in His Own Words

I firmly belive that love does more harm
than good, and that it would be a blessing
from divine providence, if it were banished
and men delivered from it.

The most important woman in the world,
living or dead, is the one who has borne the
most children.

How many men are culpable only because
of their weakness for women !

Marriage, to be happy, requires a constant
exchange of confidences.

Marriage finds no counterpart in nature.

A woman needs six months of Paris to
know what is hers to have, and her realm.

Love is folly committed by two.

Marriage is not always the result of
love. Most young people marry in order
to secure independence and a position, and
take spouses who do not suit them in any
way. The law ought to provide a remedy at

[32]

Love and Marriage

the moment they realize they have been en-
tirely mistaken. But this indulgence ought
to favor neither imprudence nor passion. A
woman should be permitted but one divorce,
and should not be allowed to remarry for
five years afterwards. There should be no
divorce after ten years of marriage.

The life filled with love is the guarantee
of a happy home. It assures the honor of
the wife, and the respect of the husband.
It maintains confidence and good relations.

The mental inferiority of women, the
instability of their ideas, their destiny in
the social order, the necessity of inspiring
in them a constant submission, and a soft
and complaisant charity — all these make
the yoke of religion indispensable.

Women, when they are bad, are worse
than men, and more disposed to commit
crime. When the sex, which is sweet by
inheritance, once becomes degraded, it
falls into greater excesses than the other.
Women are always either much better or
much worse than men.

[33]

Napoleon in His Own Words

I do not believe it is in our nature to love
impartially. We deceive ourselves when we
think we can love two beings, even our own
children, equally. There is always a dom-
inant affection.

A man ought never to quarrel with a
woman; he should hear her unreason in
silence.

IV

THINGS POLITICAL

IN politics nothing is immutable. Events
carry within them an invincible power.
The unwise destroy themselves in resistance.
The skillful accept events, take strong hold
of them and direct them.

The great difficulty with politics is, that
there are no established principles.

If, for the sound and sagacious policies
appropriate to a great nation having pro-
found destinies to fulfill,- the demagoguery
of a party is substituted when powerful
enemies confront her, nothing effectual will
be accomplished.

The most dangerous power is an abstract
sentiment in control of the public authority.

It is only with prudence, sagacity, and
much dexterity that great aims are ac-

[35]

Napoleon in His Own Words

complished, and all obstacles surmounted.
Otherwise nothing is accomplished.

Power is most dangerous when the public
authority is obsessed by an abstract senti-
ment.

Government is difficult when one is con-
scientious.

One may lose popularity by a peccadillo
as well as by a stroke of statesmanship;
when one knows the art of reigning, one
stakes his credit only on careful consider-
ation.

What constitutes popularity? Good
natured complaisance? Who was more
popular, more complaisant than the unfor-
tunate Louis xvi? But what was his fate?
He perished! The truth is that one ought
to serve his people worthily, and not strive
solely to please them. The best way to gain
a people is to do that which is best for them.
Nothing is more dangerous than to flatter
a people. If it does not get what it wants
immediately, it is irritated and thinks that

[36]

Things Political

promises have not been kept; and if then it
is resisted, it hates so much the more as it
feels itself deceived.

One does not govern a nation by half-
measures. In all public acts force, order,
and consistency are necessary.

The duties of the head of the nation are
not those of the people. The duty of the
people is to obey the laws.

The thing to avoid is not so much error
as self-contradiction. It is especially by
the latter that authority loses its force.

Lead the ideas of your time and they will
accompany and support you; fall behind
them and they drag you along with them;
oppose them and they will overwhelm you.

There is no such thing as an absolute
despotism; it is only relative. A man can-
not wholly free himself from obligation to
his fellows. A sultan who cut off heads
from caprice, would quickly lose his own
in the same way. Excesses tend to check

[37]

Napoleon in His Own Words

themselves by reason of their own violence.
What the ocean gains in one place it loses
in another.

We are made weak both by idleness and
distrust of ourselves. Unfortunate, indeed,
is he who suffers from both. If he is a
mere individual he becomes nothing; if he
is a king he is lost.

A prince should suspect everything.

In politics, an absurdity is not an impedi-
ment.

One who wants to be a force in govern-
ment must be ready to put himself in peril;
if need be, to dare assassination.

Government must be administered for
the general good without worrying about
whether it pleases this or that individual.
If one attempts a middle course, serving
each party, he attempts an absurd equili-
brium, arouses dissatisfaction in the great
majority where good sense is always found;
for it is the acquiescence of the great body

[38]

Things Political

of the people that makes public opinion
sovereign.

Public opinion is the thermometer a
monarch should constantly consult.

It must not be forgotten that rigorous
authority and justice are the kindness of
kings. The kindness of kings and that of
individuals are not to be confounded.

I do not allow myself to be imposed upon
by reputations. Former services I consider
only a school in which one ought to have
learned to serve better. Within a short time
I have become an old administrator. The
most difficult art is not in the choice of men,
but in giving to the men chosen the highest
service of which they are capable.

The great orators who sway assemblies
by the brilliancy of their speech, are in gen-
eral very ordinary statesmen. It is useless
to contend with them by words; they will
always have more sonorous phrases than
yours. The thing to do is to meet their
glibness with precise, logical reasoning.

[39]

Napoleon in His Own Words

Their strength is in vagueness. One must
pin them down to facts. This method is
death to their pretensions.

Immorality is, without possibility of con-
tradiction, the worst thing that can be found
in a sovereign, for the reason that it at once
makes immorality fashionable. It is emu-
lated as a point of honor. It fortifies all
vices, strikes at all virtue, infects society
with a veritable plague. It is the scourge of
a nation.

I would conceive a bad opinion of a gov-
ernment all of whose edicts were drafted in
a literary style. The true art is that each
edict have the style and character of the
class it affects.

Wherever there is a source of incontest-
able power, men will be found to draw it to
themselves.

France is the country where officials have
the least influence. To rely on them is to
build on sand. Great things are done in
France only by relying on the people. More-

[40]

Things Political

over a government ought to seek its support
from that very source.

Posterity alone rightly judges kings. Pos-
terity alone has the right to accord or with-
hold honors.

Democracy exalts sovereignty; but aris-
tocracy alone maintains it.

The trade of being a king is not child's
play in this century. It is inevitable that
the manners of kings should change with
the manners of the people. In order to have
the right to the services of the people, it is
necessary to begin by serving them well.

We must distinguish between the acts
of a sovereign, as such, and those of an
individual who is unconstrained as to his
opinions. State policy permits, and even
requires, in the one, what should be without
excuse in the other.

A government in appealing to the intelli-
gence of all its citizens, acts in its own
interest and strengthens the social edifice;

[41]

Napoleon in His Own Words

every citizen ought to be interested in the
security of the state.

A throne is only a bench covered with
velvet.

Obedience to public authority ought not
to be based either on ignorance or stupidity.

No constitution continues unchanged ;
the change it undergoes depends on men
and circumstances. If there are objections
to an overstrong government, there are still
more to a weak one. Every day it is con-
strained to violate positive laws ; there is no
other way to do. Without doing it, it is
impossible to get along.

I had Baumont and two hundred others
in the west arrested as grain smugglers.
There was not a single minister who might
not have been accused. The government
could not be arbitrary, because it did not
have the support of a feudal system, a class
financially interested in it, nor prejudices.
The day the government should become
arbitrary it would lose the support of public

[42]

Things Political

opinion and would be lost. There was need
of an extraordinary council for these un-
foreseen cases. The senate served very
well.

I complained of wrongs done a French-
man at Venice, and demanded reparation.
They urged the laws as a difficulty in the
way. I threatened to destroy them and
pointed out that they had the Council of
Ten and the Judges of the Inquisition, etc.
The Judges of the Inquisition easily found
a way to meet my demands.

The true policy of a government is to
make use of aristocracy, but under the
forms and in the spirit of democracy.

A form of government which is not the
result of a long series of emergencies, of
misfortunes, and of efforts and attempts on
the part of a people, will never take very
deep root.

A prince should never allow the spirit of
intrigue and faction to triumph over his
authority, or a mean spirit of unsteadiness

[43]

Napoleon in His Own Words

and opposition to discredit that fundamental
sovereignty which is the foundation of
social order and the true source of all that
benefits a people.

The old patched monarchies will last only
as long as the people do not realize their
own power. Such structures always perish
through their foundations.

Legislation is a weapon that a govern-
ment ought always to use when national
prosperity is in danger.

The men who have changed the universe
have never accomplished it by changing
officials but always by inspiring the people.

Prudence is good when one has the choice
of means. When one hasn't, it is daring
which achieves success.

Republics are not to be made from old
monarchies.

In revolutions everything is speedily for-
gotten. The good that you do today will
be forgotten tomorrow. Conditions once

[44]

Things Political

changed, gratitude, friendship, relationship
— all ties are broken, and each person seeks
his own interest.

In national crises, the reasonable man is
the one who is considered feeble, because
passion resembles force.

A man at the head of a struggling party
in civil turmoil is called a rebel chief. But
when he has succeeded, when he has done
great deeds, and established his country and
himself, he is given the name of general, and
sovereign, and that sort of thing. It is
success that gives him the title. If he had
been unfortunate he would have continued
to be a rebel chief, and perhaps have per-
ished on the scaffold. It is success which
makes men great.

Anarchy invariably leads to arbitrary
government.

Provisional governments placed in diffi-
cult circumstances ought to concern them-
selves exclusively with the public safety and
the interests of the country.

[45]

Napoleon in His Own Words

It is inevitable that a government which
follows the storms of revolution and which
is menaced by enemies from without and
disturbed by intrigue within, will be some-
what harsh.

Insurrection and the emigration of the
nobility are diseases of the skin. Terrorism
is an internal disease.

In revolutions, like attracts like, as it does
in the physical world.

A universal rule: Never a revolution
without terror.

Among nations and in revolutions, aris-
tocracy always exists. If you attempt to
get rid of it by destroying the nobility, it
immediately re-establishes itself among the
rich and powerful families of the third
estate. Destroy it there, and it survives and
takes refuge among the leaders of workmen
and of the people. A prince gains nothing
by this shifting of aristocracy. On the con-
trary he re-establishes stable conditions by
permitting it to continue as it is, readjust-

[46]

Things Political

ing, however, the old order to the new
principles.

With good fortune one renders a people
glorious ; it requires much firmness to make
them happy.

Sooner or later the public interests over-
come minor prejudices.

In order that a people may be free, it is
necessary that the governed be sages, and
those who govern, gods.

Incidents should not govern state pol-
icies; but state policies, incidents.

Neutrality consists in having equal
weights and measures for each. In state-
craft it is nonsense, for our interest always
lies with the triumph of one or the other.

Constitutions are good only as we make
progress under them.

The policy which is not moral must glo-
rify morality.

[47]

Napoleon in His Own Words

Display is to power what ceremony is to
religion.

Commerce unites men. Whatever unites
men leads them to act together. Commerce
is therefore essentially dangerous to arbi-
trary authority.

One may risk a coup d'etat to gain power,
but never to strengthen it; for in that case
the supreme authority is attacked.

The laws of circumstance are abolished
by new circumstances.

A good philosopher makes a bad citizen.

A man will fight harder for his interests
than for his rights.

To win confidence in advance of success,
is the most difficult political accomplish-
ment.

When deplorable weakness and indecision
manifest themselves in the counsels of
power; when, yielding in turn to the influ-

[48]

Things Political

ence of opposing parties, and living from
day to day without fixed plans or a deter-
mined policy, it has shown the completeness
of its incapacity, and when the most mod-
erate citizens are forced to admit that the
state is no longer governed ; when, in fact,
to its incompetency the administration suf-
fers, what in the eyes of a proud people is
the greatest humiliation possible, I mean to
say the contempt of foreign nations, then
a vague inquietude spreads throughout the
community, concern for national preserva-
tion arises, and, turning its gaze on itself,
it seems to search for a man able to save it.
Such a tutelary genius (See Note 2) every
numerous nation contains within itself,
though sometimes he is slow in appearing.
In truth, it is not sufficient that he exists,
he must be known — he must know himself.
Until then all efforts are vain, all expedients
fail. The mere inertia of the majority
saves the phantom government, and, in spite
of its incapacity and weakness, the efforts
of its enemies do not prevail against it. But
let this liberator, impatiently awaited, sud-
denly give a sign of his existence, the
national instinct at once divines him and

[49]

Napoleon in His Own Words

calls him. Obstacles vanish before him, and
the whole nation, as by a common impulse,
following in his train seems to say : There
is the man !

If obedience is the result of the instinct of
the masses, revolt is the result of their
thought.

The people are capable of good judgment
when they do not listen to demagogues.
Ranters never help matters any, and always
make them worse.

In revolutions there are only two sorts of
men, those who cause them and those who
profit by them.

Thrones are never repaired.

A revolution is an opinion which utilizes
bayonets.

Some revolutions are inevitable. There
are moral eruptions, just as the outbreak of
volcanoes are physical eruptions. When the
chemical combinations which produce them

[50]

Things Political

are complete, the volcanic eruptions burst
forth, just as revolutions do when the moral
factors are in the right state. In order to
foresee them the trend of ideas must be
understandingly observed.

A revolution is a vicious circle — it is
caused by excesses and it brings them.

Young men accomplish revolutions which
older men have prepared.

Once committed to a course, a people is
riot to be stopped.

There is room for neither passion nor
prejudice in public affairs; the only permis-
sible passion is that for the public welfare.

Charles the First perished because he
resisted, Louis xvi because he did not.
Neither comprehended the strength of inertia
which is the secret of great reigns.

In statesmanship there are predicaments
from which it is impossible to escape with-
out some wrongdoing.

Napoleon in His Own Words

One can lead a nation only by helping it
see a bright outlook. A leader is a dealer
in hope.

It is rare that a legislature reasons. It
is too quickly impassioned.

Large legislative bodies resolve them-
selves into coteries, and coteries into jeal-
ousies.

Nations must be saved in spite of them-
selves.

Parties weaken themselves by their fear
of capable men.

A political faction never tolerates a
permanent leader. It needs one for each
passion.

During the Revolution the French were
never without a king.

The hereditary character of orders of
nobility deprives both noble and commoner
of the spirit of emulation.

[52]

Things Political

Necessity can be overcome only by abso-
lute power.

A revolution is effected when it is only
necessary to get rid of one man.

Absolute power represses ambitions and
makes selection ; democracy unchains all
without examination.

A usurper has had too many masters not
to begin by being arbitrary.

Nothing should resemble a man less than
a king.

(/I will be the Brutus of kings and the
Caesar of the republic.

Discipline is permanent only as it is ap-
propriate to the character of the nation.

Never have national assemblies combined
prudence and energy, wisdom and vigor.

Under a system of absolute government,
only one will is necessary to destroy an

[53]

Napoleon in His Own Words

abuse; under a representative system, five
hundred are necessary.

The people never choose real legislators.

In spite of all their horrors, revolutions
are nevertheless the true cause of regener-
ation in public customs.

Democracy may become frenzied, but it
has feelings and can be moved. As for aris-
tocracy, it is always cold and never forgives.

I have a very poor opinion of a govern-
ment which lacks the power to interdict the
things that are capable of causing friction
with foreign governments.

I espouse no party but the masses. My
policy is to complete the fusion of the whole
people.

The institution of a national nobility is
not contrary to equality. It is necessary to
maintain the social order. No social order
has ever been established on agrarian laws.
The principle of private property and of

[54]

Things Political

transmission by contract of sale, by gift
during life, or by will, is a fundamental
principle which does not detract from equal-
ity. From this principle is derived the cus-
tom of transmitting from father to son the
remembrance of services rendered to the
state. Fortunes are sometimes acquired by
means shameful or criminal. Titles acquired
by services to the state rise from a pure and
honorable source. Their transmission to
posterity is only simple justice (See Note
3).

I must govern all without regard to what
each has done. They have rallied to me to
enjoy security. They would abandon me
tomorrow if matters became problematical.

The laws of most countries are made to
oppress the unfortunate and to protect the
powerful.

We frustrate many designs against us by
pretending not to see them.

Those who avenge on principle are fero-
cious and implacable,

[55]

Napoleon in His O<wn Words

The name and the power of government
signify nothing, provided citizens are equal
in their rights, and that justice is well ad-
ministered.

There are only two classes in Europe,
those who want privileges, and those who
spurn them.

The man the least free is the man bound
to party.

Nothing goes well in a political system
where words play with things.

Social law is able to give all men the same
rights, though nature will never give them
equal abilities.

Prosperity is the best tie between prince
and people.

Government ought to be a continuous
demonstration.

The susceptibility of a government is its
own accusation of weakness.

[56]

Things Political

All governments ought to see men only
in mass.

It is the unity of interests which makes
the strength of governments.

Absolute power must be essentially pater-
nal ; otherwise it will be overthrown.

Every man who is worth thirty millions
and is not wedded to them, is dangerous to
the government.

In the last analysis there must be a mili-
tary quality in government. One governs
a horse only with boots and spurs.

The foundation of all authority is in the
advantage of those who obey.

The wars of the Revolution have en-
nobled the entire French nation.

Appealing to foreigners is a criminal act.

A party which sustains itself only by
foreign bayonets is vanquished.

[57]

Napoleon in His Own Words

The old nobility would have continued to
exist if it had not been more concerned with
branches than with roots.

Out of a hundred favorites of kings,
ninety-five have been hanged.

The court, taken collectively, exercises no
direct influence on the tone and the man-
ners of a nation. It affects these only
because its elements, those who compose it,
spread, each in his own sphere of activity,
that which they have drawn from the
common source. The tone of the court,
therefore, affects the whole nation only by
spreading through the various ranks of so-
ciety.

It is a great mistake of the court not to
give itself leadership.

The old nobility would have survived if
it had known enough to become master of
writing materials.

A prince who is afraid is liable to be
overthrown at any moment.
[58]

Things Political

To listen to the interests of all, marks an
ordinary government; to foresee them,
marks a great government.

A sovereign ought to occupy himself with
seeking the good that is in the bad, and
conversely.

A government can live only in accordance
with its own principles.

The wisdom of the chief of the state is
to foresee events. At the very moment
when he is the most beneficent he is accused
of tyranny.

It is not necessary that the chief of the
^fate should be the chief of a party.

The eminence of sovereigns depends on
that of their peoples.

A great monarch is the one who foresees
results at all times.

Palace troops are dangerous in proportion
as the sovereign is absolute.

[59]

Napoleon in His Own Words

It is good policy to make a people believe
they are free. It is good government to
make them as happy as they wish to be.

The chief of state ought no more to
abandon the government of ideas than the
government of men.

The expression " political virtue/' is non-
sense.

Peace is the first of needs, as it is the
first of glories.

Peace ought to be the result of a system
well considered, founded on the true inter-
ests of the different countries, honorable to
each, and ought not to be either a capitula-
tion or the result of a threat.

A sovereign who attaches himself to a
faction unsteadies his bark and hastens
shipwreck.

The chief of state must cooperate even
with the bad for the triumph of public af-
fairs.

[60]

Things Political

A sovereign ought not to rely either on
word or look.

The conspirators who unite to shake off
a tyranny, commence by submitting to that
of a chief.

Imagination has done more harm than
facts. It is the capital enemy of monarchs.

Honors are, for a sovereign, a moral
treasury.

It is by wounding the self-love of princes
that we influence their deliberations.

A material conspiracy is ended the mo-
ment we seize the hand which holds the
dagger; a moral conspiracy never ends.

A state is better off with ministers of
moderate ability who continue in office, than
with able ones when changes are frequent.

Indecision in fundamental things is to
government what paralysis is to the move-
ments of the limbs.

[61]

Napoleon in His Own Words

Etiquette is the prison of kings.

Public opinion is a mysterious, invisible
power, which nothing can resist. Nothing
is more changeable, more intangible, or
stronger. And yet, capricious as it is, it is,
nevertheless, right, reasonable, and just,
much oftener than we are disposed to think
it is.

It is seldom that men of moderate ability,
when in authority, have honest purposes;
they always make a mess of things.

Emergency legislation is itself an indict-
ment of the power that enacts it.

One can escape the arbitrariness of judges
only by placing one's self under the despot-
ism of law.

The most deceptive policy is playing one
faction against another, and flattering your-
self that you dominate both.

In my present situation (1814), I find
nobility only in the rabble which I have

[62]

Things Political

neglected, and rabble only in the nobility I
have created.

L Compromises weaken power.

In all public acts there should be strength,
^perseverance, and singleness.

When, among a people, all want place,
one finds himself sold out in advance.

The advent of cannon killed the feudal
system; ink will kill the modern social or-
ganization.

I will respect the conclusions of public
opinion when they are legitimate ; but public
opinion has caprices one must scorn.

In a government, it is not the inconse-
quential who need watching, it is the strong.
It is to the latter that it is necessary to
direct constant attention. Loosen the rein
on the great and at once they encroach on
the sovereign. Why occupy one's self so
mu£h with the rich? The rich have all the
advantages that organized society gives.

[63]

Napoleon in His Own Words

Their very wealth protects them far too
well. The strength, the future of a gov-
ernment, the power of a throne, are in the
common people, and the dangers which
menace it are in the strong. Sovereigns,
protect the common people if you wish that
in their turn they should protect you.

Absolute power has no need to lie; it
acts, and says nothing. A responsible gov-
ernment is, always obliged to speak, and is
led into ignoble lies. In a short time it
becomes discredited and falls, scorned.
Absolute power at least falls hated.

Political laws compared with those of
humanity have brief duration. They grow
out of conditions and manners, and as con-
ditions and manners change, they change
with them.

I have sown liberty with a bountiful
hand wherever I have established my Civil
Code (See Note 4).

In all civilized countries, mere strength
yields to civil requirements. Bayonets bow

Things Political

down before the priest who speaks in the
name of heaven, and before the man who
inspires respect by his knowledge.

There are more chances of securing a
good sovereign by heredity than by election.

Such is the inevitable trend of these nu-
merous bodies (the Chambers) ; they perish
for lack of harmony. Leaders are as neces-
sary to them as to armies. In the latter
they are appointed. But men of great talent,
the superior geniuses, make themselves
masters of assemblies and of governments.

The Revolution ought to teach that noth-
ing is foreseen.

The great powers suffer from indigestion.

A king must not allow himself to be
crushed by misfortune.

V

CONCERNING THE FINE ARTS

I LOOK on scholars and wits as I do on
coquettes. It is all right to call on either,
to chat with them, but not to take a coquette
for a wife, or the others for ministers.

Great writers are but esteemed drivelers.

A stupid is only a bore; a pedant is un-
bearable.

If the French language has become a
universal language, it is to the genius of
men of letters that we owe it.

The French language is the most culti-
vated modern language, and it is not neces-
sary to go to any other for inscriptions for
monuments.

The French language is not a perfect
language. It lacks many words. It im-
[66]

Concerning the Fine Arts

perfectly expresses a crowd of things — a
sound impression, a great thought. It is
rather the language of wit than of genius.

The classics are written by rhetoricians,
while they ought to be written only by
statesmen, or men of the world.

A book in which there were no lies would
be a curiosity.

Books are too argumentative not to cor-
rupt a nation by dishabituating it from fact.

The only encouragement for poets are
the places in the Institute, because these
give to them a standing in the nation.

The art of the sovereign, like that of the
minister, is to give refulgence to good
works.

There ought to be power to give pensions
to men of letters. To those who are in need,
the Minister of Interior gives 200,000 francs
per annum, by way of relief. It is a dis-
agreeable form of disbursing it, and has

Napoleon in His Own Words

nothing in keeping with the national source
from which it comes. It is charity.

All men of genius, and all those who
have gained rank in the republic of letters,
are brothers, whatever may be the land of
their nativity.

Newspapers are not history, any more
than bulletins are.

Historians too often make history un-
intelligible by their ignorance, or by their
laziness. When they do not understand, or
do not know, they draw on their imagina-
tion, instead of making researches which
would lead them to the truth.

History, as I take it, ought to present
individuals or peoples just as they have
shown themselves to be at the height of
their accomplishment. Account must be
taken of the external circumstances, which
must necessarily exert a great influence on
their actions ; and a clear view must be had
of the limits within which this influence
was exercised. The Roman Emperors
[68]

Concerning the Fine Arts

were not as bad as Tacitus painted them.
Moreover, I much prefer Montesquieu to
Tacitus. He is juster, and his criticism is
more conformable to truth.

It must be recognized that the real truths
of history are hard to discover. Happily,
for the most part, they are rather matters
of curiosity than of real importance. There
are so many verities ! This historical verity
so much appealed to, which each zealously
invokes, is too often only a word. Truth
is impossible at the moment of events, in
the heat of aroused passions; if, later, ac-
cord is restored, only those interested re-
main; there are none to controvert. But
what really is this historical verity in most
cases? a lie agreed on, as some one has
very wittily said. In every matter there
are two very distinct elements — the actual
facts, and the motives behind them. The
actual facts, it would seem, ought to be
incontrovertible; and yet, there are some
which remain eternally in dispute. As to
motives, what are the means of discovering
them, even assuming the good faith of the
narrators? And what will they be if the

Napoleon in His Own Words

narrators are actuated by bad faith, by in-
terest and passion ? I have given an order,
but who is able to read my innermost
thought, my real intention? Yet, neverthe-
less, each will take this order, measure it
with his own yardstick, adjust it to his own
theories, his individual beliefs. And each
will hold firmly to what he relates. And
the lesser writers who take it from these
privileged lips will be as sure of it in their
turn ! And then the memoirs and the diaries
and the drawing-room anecdotes and witty
speeches which follow in their train! That
nevertheless is history.

Little love scenes in tragedy are banal;
our age is advancing, and everything must
advance with it.

History proves that detraction falls
quickly into contempt. If detractors could
only look through the mass of rubbish
there is in the National Library that
has been written against Henry iv and
Louis xiv, they would be humiliated by
their impotence; they have not left an im-
pression.

[70]

Concerning the Fine Arts

Verse is only the embroidery of the
dramatic fabric.

A good tragedy always grows better every-
day. High tragedy is the school of great
men. It is the duty of sovereigns to encour-
age and promote it. It is not necessary to be
a poet to judge it. It is sufficient to know
men and things, to have elevation of mind,
a statesmanlike outlook.

France owes to Corneille some of her
finest achievements. If he were alive, I
would make him a prince.

I love high tragedy ; the sublime, like that
of Corneille. In tragedy great men are
more truly great than in history. We see
them only in the crises which unfold them,
in the moments of supreme decision; and
we are not burdened with all the preparatory
details and conjectures, often false, which
the historian gives us. There is equal gain
for glory, for there is enough weakness, un-
certainty, and doubt in men ; but there ought
to be none in heroes. Tragedy should be
an heroic statue in which nothing of the

[71]

Napoleon in His Own Words

weakness or quivering of the flesh is seen. It
should be the " Perseus " of Benvenuto
Cellini, that group sublime and true which
owes its very existence (though its appear-
ance gives no hint of it) to the pewter plates
and dishes which the artist in the fury of
desperation flung into his seething crucible
to give his bronze the fit quality for his
masterpiece.

I am thankful that tragedy has thus mag-
nified some men, or rather has given them
the true stature of superior men in a mortal
body. I have often wished that our poets
had been able to do that for our modern
heroes. And why not? Genius has not grown
less since the time of Caesar. But our poets
have known nothing of modern genius, not
more of Henry iv than of Philip the Fair
(See Note 5).

Tragedy should be the school of kings
and of nations. It forms the highest pin-
nacle to which poets can attain.

Melodramas are the tragedies of cham-
bermaids.

[72]

Concerning the Fine Arts

In the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, what I
admire is the great strength joined to great
simplicity which is exhibited. I am struck,
more than by anything else, by the grada-
tions of terror which characterize the pro-
ductions of this father of tragedy. And
there is there, moreover, the first spark
from which has been kindled our beautiful
modern flame.

It is not fair to paint everything black,
as Tacitus does. He has not sufficiently
sought out the causes, and the interior
springs, of events; he has not sufficiently
studied the mystery of facts and of mo-
tives. He has not sufficiently sought for
and scrutinized their interplay, to transmit
a just and impartial judgment to posterity.

Dante is to me the greatest genius of
modern times. Dante is a sun who shines
in all his brilliancy in the midst of profound
night. Everything in him is extraordinary.
His originality, especially, assigns to him a
rank apart. Ariosto has imitated the ro-
mance of chivalry, and the poems of the
ancients. Tasso has done the same thing.

[73]

Napoleon in His Own Words

Dante has not deigned to take his inspira-
tion from any other. He has wished to be
himself, himself alone; in a word, to create.
He has occupied a vast space, and has filled
it with the superiority of a sublime mind.
He is diverse, strong, and gracious. He
has imagination, warmth, and enthusiasm.
He makes his reader tremble, shed tears,
feel the thrill of honor in a way that is the
height of art. Severe and menacing, he has
terrible imprecations for crime, scourgings
for vice, sorrow for misfortune. As a citi-
zen, affected by the laws of the republic, he
thunders against its oppressors, but he is
always ready to excuse his native city,
Florence is ever to him his sweet, beloved
country, dear to his heart. I am envious
for my dear France, that she has never pro-
duced a rival to Dante; that this Colossus
has not had his equal among us. No, there
is no reputation which can be compared
to his.

It is astonishing how poorly Voltaire
bears reading (See Note 6). When the
pomp and diction, the influence of the situa-
tion, no longer mislead analysis or good

[74]

Concerning the Fine Arts

taste, then he loses a thousand per cent at
once.

Homer was the encyclopedist of his epoch
(See Note 7).

A prelate like Fenelon (See Note 8), is
the finest gift heaven can bestow on a great
city, and a government.

I disapprove of giving La Fontaine to
children not old enough to understand him
(See Note 9). There is too much irony in
the fable of the wolf and the lamb to bring
it within the reach of children. It errs,
moreover, to my mind in its purpose and
its trend. It is not true that the right of
the stronger is the better. And if it seems
to be, that is the wrong, the abuse, that
ought to be condemned. The wolf, there-
fore, ought to have choked himself in eating
the lamb.

Well done as Racine's (See Note 10)
masterpieces are in themselves, he has, nev-
ertheless, flavored them with a perpetual
gallantry, an eternal love, with his tone of

[75]

Napoleon in His Own Words

insipid sweetness, his tiresome surround-
ings. But still it is not wholly his fault;
it was the vice and the manners of his time.
Love then, and later still, was the principal
affair of life with everyone. It always is
in the idle strata of society. As for us, we
in our generation have been rudely dis-
tracted from it by the Revolution and its
stirring effects.

Without question, Tar tuff e (See Note n)
in its entirety, is from a master hand. It is
the masterpiece of an inimitable man. Nev-
ertheless, this play is of such a character
that for my part I do not hesitate to say
that if it had been written in my time I
would not have permitted it to be presented.

Gil Bias is witty (See Note 12), but he
deserved the galleys, he and all of his.

The Genius of Christianity, by De Cha-
teaubriand (See Note 13), is a work of lead
and gold, but the gold predominates.

La Harpe (See Note 14) was a man
without genius, without imagination, freez-

[76]

Concerning the Fine Arts

ingly cold to his neighbors. He was later a
rabid devotee without being more sincere.
He conspired against the state through
pride.

Everything that is great and national in
character ought to acknowledge the genius
of De Chateaubriand.

I read a few chapters of Madame de
Stael's (See Note 15) Corinne, but I
couldn't finish it. Madame de Stael has
drawn herself so well in her heroine, that
she has succeeded in making me cordially
hate her. I see her, I hear her, I feel her,
I want to get away from her, and I throw
down the book.

The home of Madame de Stael at Coppet
became a veritable arsenal against me.
Thither came many to be armed as knights
against me. She occupied herself in stir-
ring up enemies against me, and fought me
herself. She was at the same time Armide
and Clorinde (See Note 16). And yet,
after all, it is only true to say that no one
can deny that Madame de Stael is a woman

[773

Napoleon in His Own Words

of very great talent, greatly distinguished,
and of much strength of character. She
will endure.

Beaumarchais (See Note 17) was a man
without morals, without principle, a dealer
in literature, rather than a man of letters;
aspiring to fortune and finding every means
good by which he could reach it; endowed
with a keen mind, observant, mocking, and
satirical; carrying audacity to effrontery;
insolent with the great, eating from their
hand; armored against all infamies, and
sacrificing everything to his insatiable de-
sire to be the most talked of man in Paris.
Under my reign such a man would have
been locked up as a madman. It would
have been called arbitrary, but what a serv-
ice it would have been to society.

The Theatre Frangaise (See Note 18)
ought to be supported because it is a part
of the national glory. But it ought to re-
duce the price of seats in the parquette, to
twenty sous on Sunday, in order that the
people may be able to enjoy it. We do not
have to do things always just as they have

[78]

Concerning the Fine Arts

been done in the past, as if it were impos-
sible to do better.

The division of labor, which has brought
such perfection in mechanical industries, is
altogether fatal when applied to productions
of the mind. All work of the mind is
superior in proportion as the mind that
produces it is universal.

It is scarcely to be believed, yet at the
time of the Revolution Voltaire had de-
throned Corneille and Racine. We were
asleep to the beauties of these; it was the
First Consul who brought about the awak-
ening.

You can't do anything with a philosopher.

It has been the desire of my heart to
see the artists of France surpass the glory
of Athens and of Italy.

The Arcs de Triomphe would be futile
work, serving no purpose, and I would not
have built them if I had not thought them
a means of encouraging architecture. I

[79]

Napoleon in His Own Words

hoped with the Arcs de Triomphe to nourish
the architecture of France for twenty years.

In science the world of details is yet to
be discovered.

Opera costs the government eight hun-
dred thousand francs a year; it is necessary
to sustain an establishment which flatters
the national vanity. Grand Opera alone
should be permitted to produce ballets.

Why did not the Revolution, wrhich de-
stroyed so much, demolish the Chateau
of Versailles? I would not have a fort of
Louis xiv on my hands, and to tolerate an
old, badly built chateau, is to make of it,
as one has said, " a favorite without merit "
(See Note 19).

VI

ADMINISTRATION

THERE ought to be authority to give
pensions to men who have rendered
service as civil functionaries, such as pre-
fects, superior judges, counsellors of state,
and to their widows. When there is no
future for public functionaries, they abuse
their places. The Directory, unable to give
pensions, gave a pecuniary interest in official
business, something very reprehensible.

A French functionary ought to excite
envy always, never pity.

More character is required in adminis-
tration than in war.

The thing is, not to select the man whom
the place fits, but the man who fits the place.

Great functionaries, however economical
and even parsimonious they may be in their
[81]

Napoleon in His Own Words

private life, should be generous and free-
handed in their public life.

The emoluments of public employes ought
to be such as to permit a style of living cor-
responding to the importance of their func-
tions. The French ought to maintain in
everything an attitude befitting the repre-
sentatives of the greatest nation in the
world.

Laws which are consistent in theory often
prove chaotic in practice.

In practical administration, experience is
everything.

The prefects (See Note 20), with all the
authority and the local resources with which
they found themselves invested, were em-
perors on a small scale. And as their whole
power came from the appointing power, of
which they were but the instruments, as all
the influence they had arose from their im-
mediate employment, and none of it from
their own individuality, and as they owned
none of the soil they ruled, they had all the

Administration

advantages of the old despotic functionaries,
without any of their disadvantages. It had
been absolutely necessary to give this ex-
tensive power. I found myself dictator;
circumstances had willed it thus. It was
therefore necessary that the system center-
ing in me, should be in perfect harmony
with my will; otherwise there was danger
of it breaking down. The governmental
network with which I covered the country,
necessitated keen tension, and perfect elas-
ticity, if we were to repel promptly and
effectively the terrific blows constantly aimed
at us.

There must of necessity be some inter-
mediary means between the people and the
executive power, otherwise nothing will be
accomplished.

There is too much centralization of
power in France. I wish there were less
authority in Paris, and more in each local-
ity.

Without system and method, administra-
tion becomes chaos, and there is neither

[83]

Napoleon in His Own Words

public finances nor public credit ; and private
fortunes collapse with the collapse of the
state.

France abounds in practical, capable men ;
the thing is to find them, and to give
them the means of proving themselves.
There are men at the plow who ought to be
in the Council of State; and ministers of
state who ought to be at the plow.

I wish there were a teaching body which
should be a nursery of teachers, school prin-
cipals, and schoolmasters, and would arouse
in them a splendid spirit of emulation.
Young men who devote themselves to teach-
ing ought to have the prospect of rising
from one grade to another to the highest
places in the state. The feet of this great
teaching body should be in the schools, and
its head in the Senate. But the principle
of celibacy is necessary, to this extent, that
schoolmasters ought not to be allowed to
marry until they are twenty-five or thirty
years of age, and have reached a salary of
three or four thousand francs a year, and
have made sufficient economies. This is,

Administration

after all, only the application of the cus-
tomary foresight as to marriage in all ranks
of society.

I am conscious that in the matter of the
instruction of youth, the Jesuits have left
a very great void. I have no wish to re-
establish them, or any other body subject
to alien control. But I do believe myself
under obligations to organize a system of
education for the rising generation in such
a way that oversight of its political and
moral opinions may be secured.

I believe also that it is wise in this organ-
ization to require celibacy up to a certain
age; not absolute celibacy, for, without con-
tradiction, marriage is the perfect social
state.

This teaching body should be so consti-
tuted that records will be kept of each child
above nine years of age.

The Frenchman is so inclined to be in-
fatuated with the foreigner that it is, per-
haps, not necessary to teach pupils foreign

Napoleon in His Own Words

languages. One of the obstacles to the re-
establishment of our marine is the high
opinion that our sailors have of the supe-
, riority of the English. It was Prusso-mania
which lost the battle of Rossbach (See Note

21).

There will never be a fixed policy of state
until there is a teaching body with fixed
principles. As long as no one is taught from
childhood that it is necessary to be a re-
publican or a monarchist, Catholic or with-
out religion, the state will never form a
nation. It will rest on uncertain and un-
stable foundations. It will be constantly
subject to disorders and changes.

It is affirmed that the schools maintained
by the lay Brothers are likely to introduce
in the University a dangerous element, and
it is proposed to exclude them from its jur-
isdiction. I cannot understand the species
of fanaticism writh which some persons are
animated against the lay Brothers. It is
purely a prejudice. Moreover, those who
propose to leave the Brothers outside the
University do not realize that they are going
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Administration

counter to their own purposes. It is by
including them in the University that they
will become a part of the civil order, and
the danger of their independence will be
forestalled. They will not be dangerous
when they no longer have a foreign or an
unknown head (See Note 22).

There is no necessity for granting too
easily the degree of Doctor of the Univer-
sity. The postulant ought to be examined
on matters more difficult; for example, on
the comparison of languages. There would
be nothing out of the way in requiring a
candidate to speak in Latin for an hour and
a half. It is not necessary that everybody
should become a doctor.

I have never intended that professors
should undertake the establishment of col-
leges on their own account. That would be
ridiculous. On the other hand, I have never
wanted their stipends to be fixed indepen-
dently of the number of students. I have
believed their stipends should be in propor-
tion to the increase in the number of stu-
dents, so that they would have an interest

[87]

Napoleon in His Own Words

in the success of these establishments.
Moreover, it is not possible to have a uni-
form scale of stipends. They must be
graded according to locality and merit.

There are some changes to be made in
the authority regarding publications which
it is proposed to give the University. It is
not necessary that it should arrogate any
power to itself to repress works which are
published by others. Its rights should be
limited to replying to them, to putting them
on the expurgatory index of the University,
and to punishing professors who avail
themselves of such works in their teaching.
These means will be sufficient to prevent
youth from being carried away by the thou-
sand jarring errors that assail them, or
being drawn into scientific or literary her-
esies.

The religious orders would be the best
teaching bodies if they could renounce their
allegiance to a foreign head.

The project of a school of arts and crafts
for the children of soldiers and sailors, has
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Administration

been considered for the purpose of giving
them an education suitable to their station.
It may be said that it would be better to
apprentice them to masters. But that would
answer only for a year or two, and would
fail very soon. There is, moreover, a po-
litical purpose. It is important. There
should be a bringing together of all classes,
and in a national spirit. We have already
followed this system for the middle classes.
The Lycees (See Note 23) should supply
lawyers, doctors, and educated soldiers. In
order to extend this to the lower classes
two other schools should be established, and
in them should be placed the children of
the newly annexed departments in order
that they may be taught French. It is from
among these that we will one day take the
workmen for our ports for our military
workshops and for our colonies.

The law looks on the Commissioners of
War as civil agents only, while more cour-
age and military skill are required of them
than even of military officers. The courage
required is essentially moral. It is never
the result of anything but association with

[89]

Napoleon in His Own Words

danger. . . . One is revolted in hearing
daily individuals of different bureaus ad-
mit, and even almost glory in, having had
fear.

Our system of finance should consist in
the creation of a great number of indirect
contributions, of which the very moderate
rate would be capable of being increased to
the measure of need.

It seems that the price of stocks, in Paris,
is everybody's business except that of the
real owners. The so-called buyers and
sellers do nothing, in fact, but make bets
with one another that such will be at
such a time the state of the market. Each
of them, in order to make a living, tries to
direct the policies of the whole of Europe
toward the end he desires. Each invents,
comments on, or misrepresents the facts,
penetrates the councils and the cabinets of
ministers, the secrets of courts; makes am-
bassadors speak; decides peace and war;
stirs up and misleads opinion, always so avid
of novelties and of errors, especially in
France, that the more one misleads it the

[90]

Administration

more empire he has over it. And this scan-
dalous influence is not alone exercised by
that crowd of adventurers called stock-job-
bers. The stock-brokers themselves, to
whom all personal speculation is interdicted
by the nature of their business, take advan-
tage of their position and buy and sell on
their own account. Often they become op-
posed in interest to those, even, whom they
call their clients. Public morals alone would
require the suppression of this abuse, and
still other motives join with this. The
rights of liberty end where abuses com-
mence.

I do not want to have the appearance of
presenting a law for the reestablishment of
the salt tax (See Note 24). It is not that
I would fear to reestablish it if I thought it
useful to the nation; but if I did, I would
do it openly and above board. I am some-
times a fox, but I know how to be a lion.

Commerce is only possible by reason of
confidence. There can be no confidence un-
der a feeble government. There is no
confidence in a country rent by factions.

[91]

Napoleon in His Own Words

Commerce is an honorable calling, but its
essential base must be prudence and econ-
omy. The merchant must not gain his for-
tune as one gains a battle; he should make
little, but constantly.

I want to do what is best for my people,
and I will not be deterred by the murmurs
of the taxpayers. France needs large rev-
enues. They will be secured. I want to
establish and systematize for my successors
such resources as will supply them with the
extraordinary means which I have been able
to create.

Why is there no public spirit in France?
It is because the land owner is obliged to
make his court to the administration. If
he is not in its favor, he can be ruined.
Decisions in land title cases are arbitrary.
It is from this that in no other nation is
there such servile attachment to the govern-
ment as in France, because only there is title
to land dependent on the government.
Nothing has ever been done for land titles
in France. Whoever shall frame a good
registration law will merit a statue.
[92]

Administration

Finances founded on good agriculture
will never be ruined.

I would find it very useful to be able to
refer to the Council of State the abuses
committed by the prefects. The fear of
this would restrain the few who give me
cause of complaint.

There is no need of any alliance between
the Bank and the Treasury. Often a trifling
transfer of funds would carry with it secrets
of state.

Courts of Special Instance (Special
Courts) cannot be dangerous when the
Supreme Court passes on their competency.

It is easy to determine with precision
misdemeanors which will come within the
jurisdiction of these courts. I wish they
could have jurisdiction in cases of attempts
against the police, the crimes of second of-
fenders, runaways from the galleys, and
also crimes committed by malefactors oper-
ating together. Simple individuals, like ju-
rors, are intimidated by the sight of a band

[93]

Napoleon in His Own Words

of culpables. It has been thought, and
rightly, that experienced judges would not
be as susceptible to these impressions of
fear. That is the true and only reason for
establishing these courts of Special Instance.

Care must be taken not to give the Court
of Appeals such powers as will, insensibly,
lead it to go into questions of fact.

Do not imagine that the power to pardon
can be exercised with impunity, or that so-
ciety will applaud every use of it by the
monarch. Society will disapprove when it
is extended to felons, to murderers, because
then it becomes dangerous to the social
order.

It is in sentences for violation of fiscal
regulations, and, more particularly still, in
those for political delinquencies, that clem-
ency is well placed. In these matters the
theory is that it is the sovereign who has
been attacked, and therefore there is a cer-
tain nobility in pardon. At the first reports
of an offense of this kind, the interested
public ranges itself on the side of the cul-

[94]

Administration

prit, and not on that of the punishing power.
If the prince remits the punishment, the
people think of him as superior to the
offense, and opinion is turned against the
offender. If the prince follows the opposite
course, he gains the reputation of being
hateful, and tyrannical. If he extends par-
don in the case of odious crimes, he gains
the reputation of being weak or evilly dis-
posed.

Borrowing is the ruin of agricultural na-
tions and the life of manufacturing ones.

The luxuries of the rich give necessaries
to the poor.

In the application of laws it is necessary
to take into consideration the non-producers.

Our system of jurisprudence is a patch-
work. It is not based on comprehensive
general principles.

It is a mistake to suppose that the jury
system is strongly intrenched in public
opinion.

[95]

Napoleon in His Own Words

There is nothing requiring that juries
shall be selected from the whole body of
the population. Why should there be such
a hodge-podge, associating men without in-
telligence with men of education, to the dis-
gust of the latter?

The police invent more than they find.

Every indulgence to culprits suggests com-
plicity.

Strong reasons have been urged both for
and against the jury system. But there is
no dissimulating the fact that a tyrannical
government would have much more success
with juries than with judges who are less
under their control, and who always would
oppose to it more resistance; moreover, the
bloodiest tribunals have had juries. If they
had been composed of magistrates, mere
custom and formalities would have been a
rampart against unjust and arbitrary con-
demnations. The severity which the con-
tinual exercise of these functions so fre-
quently brings is not greatly to be feared
when the procedure is public, and the de-

[96]

Administration

fendants are represented by counsel, with
the right of argument (See Note 25).

To interpret the law is to corrupt it;
lawyers strangle laws.

A magistrate ought to have courage equal
to all proofs, and, for example, like Presi-
dents Harley and Mole (See Note 26), be
ready to perish in defending the sovereign,
the throne, and the laws. The most glorious
death would be that of a soldier on the field
of honor, if the death of a magistrate in
defense of the sovereign, the throne, and
the laws, were not more glorious still.

One means of reducing litigation by half
would be to pay lawyers only when they
won their case. But I have never been able
to impress this idea on the Council of State.

Treaties are observed as long as they are
in harmony with interests.

I wish that property in mines, once con-
ceded, should become the same as other
kinds of property; that contests regarding

[97]

Napoleon in His Own Words

it should be submitted to the ordinary
courts, and that we entrust the duty of
thoroughly working the mines to the interest
of the individuals who will come to own
them in perpetuity. Fathers will be stim-
ulated by the interests of their children.
That is the disposition of the human heart.
The whole world builds palaces and plants
trees for the generations to come. Mine
owners would recognize that instead of dig-
ging from the surface, it is necessary to
drive levels. They will not want to forfeit
the advantages of a comprehensive system
of future development for a trifling and
temporary advantage.

The national character makes it necessary
that the liberty of the press be limited to
works of a substantial character. News-
papers should be subjected to severe police
regulations (See Note 27).

A people which is able to say everything
becomes able to do everything.

It is conceivable that among a people
where public opinion must influence every-

[98]

Administration

thing, where it rightfully affects all minis-
terial acts, and the deliberations of great
state councils, that the press should be ab-
solutely free. But our form of government
does not call on the people to take part in
political affairs. It is the Senate, the Coun-
cil of State, and the Corps Legislative which
think, which speak, and which act for
them. In the English system, public opin-
ion controls the government. The press,
therefore, ought not to be prevented from
criticising ministers, and censuring their
acts. The disastrous effects of this are bal-
anced by the institutions and the manners
of the nation.

After all, even in England, what benefits
result from this license of the press against
men in office? Does it reform them? Does
it correct their morals? On the contrary,
certain to be attacked whatever may be
their conduct, the great, acting openly and
without scruple, permit the torrent of criti-
cism, and become all the more corrupt.

Newspapers ought to be reduced to hand-
bills.

[99]

Napoleon in His Own Words

Diplomacy is the police in grand costume.

Advice to diplomats: In your conversa-
tion carefully avoid everything that might
offend. Do not utter criticism of any cus-
tom, nor write any ridicule. Every people
has its own customs, and it is too much the
habit of the French to compare everything
with their own, and to offer themselves as
models. That is a bad step which will hin-
der your success by rendering you unbear-
able in every society.

As a woman of the old aristocracy could
even give her body to a plebian, and not
disclose to him the secrets of the aristocracy,
so men accustomed to the usages of good
society are alone the only possible ambas-
sadors.

Where treaties are concerned, an ambas-
sador should take advantage of everything
to work for the benefit of his country.

I would prefer that French ambassadors
should not have any privileges abroad, and
that they should be arrested if they did not
[100]

Administration

pay their debts, or if they conspired, rather
than give privileges to foreign ambassadors
in prance where they are more easily able
to conspire, because France is a Republic.
The people of France are unsophisticated
enough. It is not necessary to increase the
importance in their eyes of ambassadors
whom they already look on as worth ten
times as much as another man. It will be
better to say nothing about it. The nation
already has too much consideration for for-
eigners.

I do not maintain that the ceremonies of
interment should be entirely free to people
of small means, for their pride would pre-
vent them from asking this favor. But it
should be so that those who have this sort
of vanity could gratify it cheaply. I also
want the cemeteries embellished with chap-
els and other customary ornaments.

I want the Bank of France (See Note 28)
to be just enough in the hands of the gov-
ernment and not too much. I do not ask
that it lend the government money, but that
it provide facilities for realizing on its
EIOI]

•Nafi clean in His Own Words

revenue cheaply, and at convenient times
and places.

It is a sound principle that commands and
garrisons should be changed from time to
time. The interest of the state requires that
there shall be no irremovable places. The
thought of unity should be confined to the
unity of the Godhead.

Among those who have learned their
trades by practice, it is not easy to secure
simplicity; the formalities of the Council of
State prevented much simplification.

Foreign commerce, infinitely below manu-
factures and agriculture in its results, arises
out of them, while they do not arise out of
it. The interest of these three essential
bases of the prosperity of nations are diver-
gent, and often opposed to each other. They
ought to be aided in the order of their
national importance.

The famous doctrine of laissez faire, lais-
ser passer (See Note 29), will prove dan-
gerous if accepted in too literal a manner.

[102]

Administration

It is necessary to act on this maxim with
prudence and discrimination.

It is by comparison and example that
agriculture, like all the other arts, must be
perfected. In the departments which are
still backward in methods of cultivation, the
more well-to-do land owners should be in-
duced to send their children to study the
methods in use in the departments where
agriculture is flourishing; and they can be
induced to do so by encomiums and honors.

I attach a great deal of importance, and
a high ideal of glory, to the abolition of
mendicancy.

The emigres (See Note 30) who left
France are more interesting than the men
of the same class who did not go out, for
they had the courage then to make war, and
today to make peace.

I want to take up the subject of Receivers
General. They get altogether too much.
The Receiver General of Aisne, for example,
makes more than a hundred thousand francs

Napoleon in His O<wn Words

a year. It is scandalous. Half the Receiv-
ers General make that much. The other
half make from forty to fifty thousand
francs a year at the least.

I seek in vain where to place the limits
between the civil and the religious authori-
ties. The existence of such limits is a
chimera. We ought to avoid any reawaken-
ing of the ancient pretensions of the priests
by these discussions. It is not that the
priests are greatly to be feared. They have
lost their empire never to regain it. The
day of their superiority in the sciences has
passed to the civil order. But they are a
body which has permanent privileges. The
authorities ought to handle them with cir-
cumspection.

The monks formed the militia of the
Pope, and they recognized no other sov-
ereign. For the same reason they were
more to be feared by the government than
the secular clergy. The government is
never embroiled except by them. ... I
respect that which religion respects, but, as
a statesman, I am not able to fall in love
[104]

Administration

with the fanaticism of celibacy. Military
fanaticism is the only kind which seems to
me good for anything. That in time must
be destroyed. My principal purpose in es-
tablishing a teaching body is to have a
means of directing political and moral opin-
ions. This institution will be a guarantee
against the reestablishment of the monks.
There will be no more talk to me about it.

A bad law enforced, does more good than
a good law emasculated by judicial con-
struction.

Every association is a government within
the government.

It is necessary to govern colonies with
force; but there is no real force without
justice.

The colonial system is ended. We must
hold firmly to the free navigation of the
sea, and to universal freedom of exchange.

We have given all the whites over to the
ferocity of the blacks, and we eveirthink the

Napoleon in His Own Words

victims ought not to be dissatisfied! Well,
if I had been at Martinique (See Note 31)
I would have been for the English, because,
before all, one must save his life. I am for
the whites because I am white. I have no
other reason, and that is a good one. How
was it possible to give freedom to Africans,
to men who had no civilization, who did
not even know what a colony was, what
France was? It is very easy to say that
those who wanted liberty for the blacks
wanted bondage for the whites; but still,
does anyone believe that if the majority of
the Convention had known what they were
doing, and known the colonies, they would
have given freedom to the blacks? No,
undoubtedly very few persons were in a
position to foresee the results, and a senti-
ment of humanity always acts powerfully
on the imagination. But as a present mat-
ter, to cling to these principles still, is not
good faith; it is only pride and hypocrisy.

VII

CONCERNING RELIGION

THE honest man never doubts the exis-
tence of God, for if reason does not
suffice to comprehend Him, the instinct of
the soul accepts Him. Everything that per-
tains to the soul is in sympathy with the
religious feeling.

There are no men who understand them-
selves better than soldiers and priests.

Aristocracy is the spirit of the Old Testa-
ment, democracy of the New.

I am among those who think that the
pains of the next world were imagined as
a complement to the insufficient attractions
that are offered us there.

The existence of God is attested by every-
thing that appeals to our imagination. And
if our eye cannot reach Him it is because
[107]

Napoleon in His Own Words

He has not permitted our intelligence to go
so far.

Jesus Christ was the greatest republican.

The merit of Mahomet is that he founded
a religion without an inferno.

Charity and alms are recommended in
every chapter of the Koran as being the
most acceptable services, both to God and
the Prophet.

It can be said of priests, as has been said
of the tongue, that they are the worst of
things or the best.

The religious zeal which animates priests,
leads them to undertake labors and to brave
perils which would be far beyond the pow-
ers of one in secular employment.

Conscience is the most sacred thing among
men. Every man has within him a still
small voice, which tells him that nothing on
earth can oblige him to believe that which
he does not believe. The worst of all tyran-
[108]

Concerning Religion

nies is that which obliges eighteen-twentieths
of a nation to embrace a religion contrary
to their beliefs, under penalty of being de-
nied their rights as citizens and of owning
property, which, in effect, is the same thing
as being without a country.

The executive authority ought to be very
careful not to intermeddle too much with
the affairs of the clergy and of the priests.
It is better to let the courts act, to oppose
robe to robe, pride of profession to pride of
profession. Judges, like priests, are, in their
way, a kind of a body of theologians. They,
also, have their maxims, their rules, and
their canons.

Fanaticism must be put to sleep before it
can be eradicated.

The philosophy of the gospel is the phi-
losophy of equality, consequently the most
favorable to republican government.

Priests, in the genuine spirit of the gos-
pel, ought to contribute to public tranquility
by preaching the sound maxims of charity,
[109]

Napoleon in His Own Words

which are at the foundation of religion and
of the gospel.

Fanaticism is always the product of per-
secution.

To enable parish priests to be truly use-
ful, and to prevent them from making poor
use of their ministry, I wish there were
added to the course in theology, a course in
agriculture, and in the elements of law, and
medicine.

Policemen and prisons ought never to be
the means used to bring men back to the
practice of religion.

You cannot drag a man's conscience be-
fore any tribunal, and no one is answerable
for his religious opinions to any power on
earth.

There is no place in a fanatic's head
where reason can enter.

Religious quarrels are not different from
political quarrels; for, priests, soldiers, or
[no]

Concerning Religion

magistrates, we are all men. These quar-
rels end by the intervention of some author-
ity strong enough to compel all parties to
get together and make up.

Is it not a fact that the Catholic religion
appeals more strongly to the imagination by
the pomp of its ceremonies than by the
sublimity of its doctrines? When you want
to arouse enthusiasm in the masses, it is
necessary, above all things, to appeal to their
eyes.

The sovereignty of the people, liberty,
and equality, these are the code of the
gospel.

It is contrary to divine right to prevent a
man, who needs to work on Sunday the
same as other days of the week, from work-
ing on Sunday, in order to earn his bread.
The government has no right to enact such
a law, unless it gives bread gratis to those
who have none. For my part, if I under-
took to interfere in the matter, I would be
more disposed to order that after the hours
of service on Sundays, the shops should be

Napoleon in His Own Words

opened, and that workmen should take up
their work.

In religion everything ought to be free
and for the people. The requirement of
paying at the door, or of paying for seats, is
something revolting. The poor ought not to
be punished simply because they are poor
in that which consoles them for their pov-
erty. I have never been willing that tickets
of admittance to my chapel should be issued.
I have always wanted the seats open to the
first comers.

The church ought to be in the state, and
not the state in the church.

One crushes a religious nation, one does
not undermine it.

The populace judges of the power of God
by the power of the priests.

I do not see in religion the mystery of
the incarnation so much as the mystery of
the social order. It introduces into the
thought of heaven an idea of equalization,

[112]

Concerning Religion

which saves the rich from being massacred
by the poor.

It is with water, and not with oil, that
theological volcanoes are put out.

A parish priest ought to be a natural
peacemaker, the chief moral influence of
his people.

Knowledge and history are the enemies
of religion.

Fanaticism is not the enemy most to be
feared, but atheism.

Religion is, after all, a sort of inocula-
tion, or vaccination, which, in satisfying our
love of the marvelous, indemnifies us against
charlatans and magicians. Priests are worth
more than the Cagliostros (See Note 32),
the Kants (See Note 33), and all the dream-
ers of Germany.

Man's uneasiness is such, that the vague-
ness and the mystery which religion pre-
sents, are absolutely necessary to him.

Napoleon in His O<wn Word's

The atheist is a better subject than the
fanatic; one obeys, the other kills.

To fear death is to make profession of
atheism.

The intellectual anarchy which we are
undergoing is the result of the moral anar-
chy, the extinction of faith, the negation
of principles, which have preceded.

Philosophers vainly strive; they would
establish systems, but they search in vain a
better doctrine than that of Christianity,
which has reconciled man with himself, in-
sured the peace and public order of nations,
and at the same time the happiness and the
hope of individuals.

Man loves the marvelous. It has an irre-
sistible charm for him. He is always ready
to leave that with which he is familiar to
pursue vain inventions. He lends himself
to his own deception.

Our credulity is a part of the imperfec-
tion of our natures. It is inherent in us to

Concerning Religion

desire to generalize, when we ought, on the
contrary, to guard ourselves very carefully
from this tendency.

Who knows if the happiness of today
may not be the misfortune of the morrow?
Religion offers consolation in all phases of
life. One is less unhappy when one believes.
One finds from the very fact of belief, the
strength within himself to support unhappi-
ness.

The Christian religion will always be the
most solid support of every government
clever enough to use it.

VIII

WAR

THERE are only two kinds of plans of
campaign, the good and the bad. The
good fail nearly always through unforeseen
circumstances, which often make the bad
succeed.

A general must be a charlatan.

Unhappy the general who comes on the
field of battle with a system.

The glory and honor of arms must be
the first consideration of a general in giving
battle, the safety and the conservation of
his men is only secondary. But it is often
in the audacity, in the steadfastness, of the
general that the safety and the conserva-
tion of his men is found.

The gesture of a beloved general is worth
more than a clever speech.
[116]

War

A military man must have character as
well as brains. Men who have brains but
little character have no business in the pro-
fession of arms. It is like a ship with too
much sail for its hull. It is better to have
character and not so much brains. Men
who are only moderately supplied with
brains, but who have character, often suc-
ceed in this trade. You have got to have
as much base as height. The man who has
plenty of brains, and character in the same
degree, he is a Caesar, a Hannibal, a Tu-
renne (See Note 34), a Prince Eugene, or
a Frederick the Great.

Inevitable wars are always just.

The military principles of Caesar were
those of Hannibal, and those of Hanni-
bal were those o>f Alexander — to hold his
forces in hand, not to be vulnerable at any
point, to throw all his forces with rapidity
on any given point.

The presence of the general is necessary;
he is the head, he is everything in an
army. It was not the Roman army which

Napoleon in His Own Words

reduced Gaul, but Caesar. It was not the
Carthaginian army which held the Repub-
lican army trembling at the gates of Rome,
but Hannibal.

An army which cannot be reen forced is
already defeated (See Note

A commander in chief ought to say to
himself several times a day: If the enemy
should appear on my front, on my right,
on my left, what would I do? And if the
question finds him uncertain, he is not well
placed, he is not as he should be, and he
should remedy it.

During a campaign no commander should
sleep under a roof; and there should be
only one tent, that of the general in chief,
necessary on account of the clerical work
to be done.

Military science is the calculation of
masses on given points.

The force of any army, like momentum
in mechanics, is represented by the mass

War

multiplied by the rate of movement. A
rapid inarch adds to the morale of an army;
it increases its means of victory.

Nothing is more important in war than
singleness in command. So also when war
is made against a single power it is only
necessary to have a single army, acting ac-
cording to a single plan, and led by a, single
chief.

It is imagination which loses battles.

The moment of greatest peril is the mo-
ment of victory.

At the beginning of a campaign it is
important to consider whether or not to
move forward; but when one has taken
the offensive it is necessary to maintain it
to the last extremity. However skilfully
effected a retreat may be, it always lessens
the morale of an army, since in losing the
chances of success, they are remitted to the
enemy. A retreat, moreover, costs much
more in men and materials than the blood-
iest engagements, with this difference, also,

[119]

Napoleon in His Own Words

that in a battle the enemy loses practically
as much as you do; while in a retreat you
lose and he does not.

Changing from the defensive to the
offensive, is one of the most delicate opera-
tions in war.

An army ought to be ready every mo-
ment to offer all the resistance of which it
is capable.

Never march by flank in front of an
army in position. This principle is absolute.

The keys of a fortress are worth the
liberty of its garrison when it has resolved
not to surrender itself. Thus it is always
more advantageous to grant honorable
terms of capitulation to a garrison which
has shown a vigorous resistance, than to
risk the chances of an assault.

Soldiers ought to be encouraged by all
means to remain with the colors. This will
be easily accomplished by showing high
esteem for old soldiers. Pay ought to be

[120]

War

increased with years of service. It is a
great injustice not to pay a veteran more
than a recruit.

In war, as in love, in order to take a
decisive part, one must be right there.

The art of a general of the advance guard
or of the rear guard, is, without compromisr
ing himself too far, to hold the enemy, to
retard him, to delay him three or four hours
in making a league. To accomplish these
important results is a matter of tactics, and
more essential in cavalry command than in
infantry, and in advance or rear guard posi-
tions than in any other.

In a battle, as in a siege, the art consists
in concentrating very heavy fire on a par-
ticular point. The line of battle once estab-
lished, the one who has the ability to con-
centrate an unlocked for mass of artillery
suddenly and unexpectedly on one of these
points is sure to carry the day.

Generals who hold fresh troops for the
morrow of the battle, are nearly always

[121]

Napoleon in His Own Words

beaten. One must use all his forces to the
very last man, if any purpose is served by
it, for on the morrow of a complete success
one has no obstacles before him; the force
of prestige alone will assure new triumphs
to the victor.

Dealing constantly with even the most
violent facts, involves less wear on the
heart than dealing with abstractions; mili-
tary men, therefore/have an advantage over
lawyers.

There is a joy in danger.

War is a serious game in which a man
risks his reputation, his troops, and his
country. A sensible man will search him-
self to know whether or not he is fitted for
the trade.

No man will seek epaulettes on the field
of battle, when he can get them in an ante-
chamber.

Nothing can excuse a general for profiting
by information gained in the service of his
[122]

War

country to fight it and deliver its ramparts
to foreigners. This is a crime condemned
by religion, morality, and honor.

War is a natural state.

A general-in-chief should give repose to
neither victors nor vanquished.

There is only one favorable moment in
war; talent consists in knowing how to
seize it.

Coolness is the greatest quality in a man
destined to command.

The mind of a good general ought to
resemble in clearness the lens of a field-
glass.

He who cannot look over a battlefield
with a dry eye, causes the death of many
men uselessly.

In war, the chief alone understands the
importance of certain things, and he alone
is able by his will, and by his superior in-

Napoleon in His Own Words

formation, to vanquish and surmount all
difficulties.

In war, theory is all right so far as general
principles are concerned; but in reducing
general principles to practice there will
always be danger. Theory and practice are
the axis about which the sphere of accom-
plishment revolves.

There are some cases where the expend-
iture of men is an economy of blood.

The secret of great battles consists in
knowing how to deploy and concentrate at
the right time.

Information obtained from prisoners
ought to be accepted only at its real value.
A soldier sees nothing beyond his own com-
pany; and an officer is able, at the most, to
give an account of the position, or of the
movements, of the division to which his reg-
iment belonged. And the general-in-chief
ought to take into consideration the admis-
sions torn from prisoners only when they
are consistent with the reports of the ad-
[124]

_ War _

vance guard, in order to fortify his con-
jectures as to the position of the enemy.

The art of war consists in being always
able, even with an inferior army, to have
stronger forces than the enemy at the point
of attack or the point which is attacked
(See Note

The praises of enemies are always to be
suspected. A man of honor will not permit
himself to be flattered by them, except when
they are given after the cessation of hostil-
ities.

Prisoners of war do not belong to the
power for whom they have fought; they
are wholly under the safeguard of the honor
and generosity of the nation which has dis-
armed them.

Read, and re-read the campaigns of
Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Caesar,
Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, Prince Eu-
gene, and of Frederick the Great; model
yourself after them; that is the only means
of becoming a great captain and of surpris-
[125]

Napoleon in His Own Words

ing the secrets of the art of war. Your
genius enlightened by this study, you will
then reject every maxim contradictory to
those of these great men.

The most desirable quality in a soldier is
constancy in the support of fatigue; valor
is only secondary.

There are five things which a soldier must
never part with: his gun, his cartridges,
his haversack, provisions for four days at
least, and his trench tool.

Nothing augments a battalion like suc-
cess.

An army is a nation which obeys.

Policy and morals concur in repressing
pillage.

The best soldier is not so much the one
who fights as the one who marches.

As a result of holding councils of war
there happens what has always happene4
[126]

War

from the beginning of time, we end by
resigning ourselves to the worst, which, in
war, is nearly always the most pusillanimous
part.

Gentleness, good treatment, honor the
victor and dishonor the vanquished, who
should remain aloof and owe nothing to
pity.

In war, audacity is the finest calculation
of genius.

When once the flames of civil war break
out, military chiefs are only the means of
victory; it is the crowd that governs.

In the wars of parties, defeat perma-
nently discourages; it is therefore in civil
wars especially, that good fortune is nec-
essary.

In civil war it is not given to every man
to know how to conduct himself. There is
something more than military prudence
necessary; there is need of sagacity and the
knowledge of men.

Napoleon in His Own Words

Give yourself all the chances of success,
when you plan to engage in a great battle,
especially if your opponent is a great cap-
tain; for if you are beaten, if you should be
in the midst of your stores, near your forti-
fied places, unhappy the vanquished.

Privation and misery are the real in-
structors of the soldier.

Nothing is so contrary to military rules
as to make the strength of your army
known, either in the orders of the day, in
proclamations, or in the newspapers. When
one is led to speak of his force he should
exaggerate their number, making the num-
ber formidable by doubling or trebling it;
and, on the contrary, when one speaks of
the force of the enemy, one ought to dimin-
ish their number by a half or a third; all is
fair in war.

Courage is like love; it must have hope
for nourishment.

War is a lottery in which nations ought
to risk nothing but small amounts.

War

War is above all else an affair of skill.

In war a great disaster always indicates a
great culprit.

The man of genius always recovers him-
self after a fault as after a misfortune.

The French nation has never been van-
quished when united.

Our troops go forward spontaneously.
A war of invasion pleases them. But a
standstill defensive does not fit in with the
French genius.

There is but one honorable way to be
made a prisoner of war. That is to be
taken singly, and without being able to use
one's weapons. Then there is nothing else
to be done ; one yields to necessity.

Achilles was the son of a goddess and of
a mortal; in that, he is the image of the
genius of war. The divine part is all that
that is derived from moral considerations of
character, talent, the interest of your ad-
[ 129 ]

Napoleon in His Own Words

versary, of opinion, of the temper of the
soldier, which is strong and victorious, or
feeble and beaten, according as he believes
this divine part to be. The mortal part is
the arms, the fortifications, the order of
battle — everything which arises out of ma-
terial things.

In war any commander of a fortress who
yields it a moment sooner than he is obliged
to, deserves death.

Alarms dampen spirits and paralyze
courage.

When a city is in a state of siege, a
military commander becomes a sort of
magistrate and must conduct himself with
moderation and the decency which the cir-
cumstances require.

To violate military agreements is to re-
nounce civilization; it is to put one's self
on the level of the Bedouin of the desert.

The principle of all negotiations for an
armistice is that each shall remain in the

[130]

War

situation in which the armistice finds him.
The rights of all follow from the application
of this principle.

Of all men, the soldier is the most sensible
to benefits.

When a nation has no records for enroll-
ment, and no principle of military organ-
ization, it is very hard for it to organize an
army.

For the brave a gun is only the handle of
a bayonet.

When a soldier has been disgraced and
dishonored by being flogged, he cares little
for the glory and honor of his country.

Intrepid men are not found among those
who have something to lose.

In war, genius is thought in action.

When conscription is no longer looked on
as a burden, but only as a point of honor, of
which each is jealous, then only is a nation
great, glorious, strong; it is then alone that

[131]

Napoleon in His Own Words

it is in a position to brave reverses, inva-
sions — time itself.

Courage cannot be counterfeited. It is
one virtue that escapes hypocrisy.

My custom is to sleep on the battlefield.

In war one must lean on an obstacle in
order to overcome it.

No man has a place in the French army
who values life more than the national glory
and the esteem of his comrades.

A general in the power of the enemy has
no more orders to give to those who still
fight.

In war, character and opinion make more
than half of the reality.

If ever an army invades England, London
will not be able to resist an hour.

That dependable courage, which in spite
of the most sudden circumstances, neverthe-

War

less allows freedom of mind, of judgment
and of decision, is exceedingly rare.

Bravery is an innate quality; no one can
give it to you, it is in the blood. Courage
is a quality of the mind. Bravery is often
only impatience of danger.

War is becoming an anachronism; if we
have battled in every part of the continent
it was because two opposing social orders
were facing each other, the one which dates
from 1789, and the old regime. They could
not exist together; the -younger devoured
the other. I know very well, that, in the
final reckoning, it was war that overthrew
me, me the representative of the French
Revolution, and the instrument of its prin-
ciples. But no' matter ! The battle was lost
for civilization, and civilization will inevit-
ably take its revenge. There are two sys-
tems, the past and 'the future. The present
is only a painful transition. Which must
triumph? The future, will it not? Yes
indeed, the future! That is, intelligence,
industry, and peace. The past was brute
force, privilege, and ignorance. Each of

[133]

Napoleon in His Own Words

our victories was a triumph for the ideas of
the Revolution. Victories will be won, one
of these days, without cannon, and without
bayonets.

It is not that addresses at the opening of
a battle make the soldiers brave. The old
veterans scarcely hear them, and recruits
forget them at the first boom of the cannon.
Their usefulness lies in their effect on the
course of the campaign, in neutralizing
rumors and false reports, in maintaining a
good spirit in the camp, and in furnishing
matter for camp-fire talk. The printed order
of the day should fulfill these different ends.

One is brave only for others.

What are the conditions that make for
the superiority of an army? Its internal
organization, military habits in officers and
men, the confidence of each in themselves;
that is to say, bravery, patience, and all that
is contained in the idea of moral means.

The issue of a battle is the result of an
instant, of a thought. There is the advance,

[134]

War

with its various combinations, the battle is
joined, the struggle goes on a certain time,
the decisive moment presents itself, a spark
of genius discloses it, and the smallest body
of reserves accomplish victory.

In war, groping tactics, half-way meas-
ures, lose everything.

Europe will never be tranquil until nat-
ural limits are restored.

The worst punishment possible in a
French army is shame.

A man who has no consideration for the
needs of his men ought never to be given
command.

Left to themselves, infantry against cav-
alry would never reach definite results. But
with artillery, forces being equal, cavalry
ought to annihilate infantry.

An army should be constituted of a just
proportion of infantry, cavalry, and artil-
lery. These different arms never take the

[135]

Napoleon in His Own Words

place of one another. For every thousand
men there should be four pieces of artillery,
and cavalry equal to a fourth of the in-
fantry.

One ought never to detach troops from an
army on the eve of an attack. Conditions
change from one moment to another. A
battalion may decide the fate of a day.

The infantry is the soul of an army.

The better infantry is, the more necessary
it is to handle them well, and to support
them with good batteries.

The strength of cavalry is in its impetus.
But it is not alone its rapidity which assures
success, it is its formation, its organization,
and the good employment of its reserves.

Artillery is more necessary to cavalry
than to infantry, since cavalry do not return
fire, and are not able to fight except with
side arms. It is to supplement this lack
that horse artillery has been originated.
Cavalry ought always to have its batteries

War

with it, whether it attacks, remains in posi-
tion, or re-forms.

To plan to reserve cavalry for the finish
of the battle, is to have no conception of the
power of combined infantry and cavalry
charges, either for attack or for defense.

It is not necessary to dissimulate ; I intend
from this time to choose my admirals from
among the young officers of thirty-two and
thereabouts. I have enough frigate captains
with ten years' experience in navigation to
be able to choose from among them six, to
whom I would be willing to confide com-
mands. My intention is to advance and
develop these young men by every possible
means.

The art of war on land is an art of gen-
ius, of inspiration. In that of the sea there
is nothing of genius or inspiration. There,
everything is constant and according to ex-
perience. The general of the sea has need
of only one science, that of navigation. The
one on land has need of all, or of a talent
which is the equivalent of all, that will

[137]

Napoleon in His Own Words

enable him to profit by all experience, and
all knowledge. A general of the sea has
nothing to divine. He knows where his
enemy is, he knows his strength. A general
on land never knows anything with cer-
tainty, never sees his enemy well, and never
knows positively where he is.

A general commandant-in-chief of a naval
army, and a general commandant-in-chief
of an army on land, need very different
qualities. One must be born with the qual-
ities necessary for the latter; while the
qualities necessary for the former can be
acquired only by experience.

A general-in-chief on the sea depends
more on his captains of vessels than a gen-
eral-in-chief on land does on his generals.
On land the commander-in-chief has the
right, and the opportunity, to himself take
direct command of troops, to support every
point, and to remedy any false movements.
A general of the sea has personal influence
only on the men on the vessel on which he
happens to be, the smoke preventing sig-
nals from being seen on the others. It is

War

therefore, of all callings, that one wherein
subalterns must take the most on themselves.

In order not to be astonished at obtaining
victories, one ought not to think only of
defeats.

The loss of our naval battles arose from
the lack of force in the generals-in-chief, to
their defects of tactics, and to the belief held
by the captains that they ought to act only
in accordance with signals.

On land, an undisciplined bravery has
been able to win sometimes; on the sea,
never.

We celebrate a victory, even while we
weep over the fallen, even enemies.

In war, luck is half in everything.

My most splendid campaign was that of
March 20; not a single shot was fired (See
Note 37).

I have a hundred thousand pensioners.

IX

SOCIOLOGY

OUR light-heartedness, lack of reflec-
tion, comes to us honestly. We will
always be Gauls. We will not place a true
value on things until we substitute principles
for turbulence, pride for vanity, and love of
institutions for love of places.

In France, only the impossible is admired.

I have shown France what she is capable
of; let her achieve it.

The distinctive characteristic of our
nation is that we are much too mercurial in
prosperity.

The French people have two equally
powerful passions which seem the very
opposites of each other, but which, neverthe-
less, grow out of the same sentiment. They
are the love of equality and the love of dis-
[ HO]

Sociology

tinctions. A government can satisfy these
two needs only by exact justice. The law
and the operation of government should be
equal for all, and honors and rewards should
come to those men who, in the eyes of all,
seem most worthy.

The sentiment of national honor is never
more than half extinguished in the French.
It takes only a spark to re-kindle it.

The Emperor observed that we French,
if we had less energy than the Romans, had
more decency. We would not have killed
ourselves, as they did, under the first
Emperors, but we would not have shown
all the turpitude, all the servility, that was
displayed under the last. " Even in our
most corrupt moments," said he, " our
baseness was not without a certain reserve/'

The French nation is easily governed if
one does not get at cross purposes with it.
Nothing equals its quick and easy compre-
hension. It distinguishes, instantly, those
who work for it, and those who work
against it. The appeal must always be made

[141]

Napoleon in His Own Words

to its intelligence. Otherwise its inquiet
spirit frets itself, it ferments and explodes.

Credulity has been the national charac-
teristic of the French since the time of the
Gauls.

If the Roman people had made the same
use of their strength that the French people
have of theirs, the Roman Eagles would
still surmount the Capital, and eighteen
centuries of slavery and of tyranny would
not have dishonored the human species.

Without a navy, France is exposed to all
sorts of insults.

Every system finds apologists in France.

The French complain of everything, and
always.

France loves change too much for any
government to endure there.

With a sincere ally, France will be mis-
tress of the world.

Sociology

When I learn that a nation can live with-
out bread, then I will believe that the French
people can live without glory.

The French are, perhaps, the only nation
in which all ranks of society, can be moved
equally strongly by means of honor.

I would like the title of Frenchman to be
the finest, the most desirable, in the world;
that every Frenchman traveling anywhere
in Europe should believe himself, should
find himself, always among friends.

There is nothing which you cannot get
from the French by the lure of danger. It
seems to give them spirit.

It is a part of the French character to
exaggerate, to complain, and to distort
everything when dissatisfied.

Among the English, the higher classes
have pride; among us, unfortunately, they
have only vanity. Herein is the great and
characteristic difference between the two
people. The great mass of our people, today

[i43]

Napoleon in His Own Words

at least (1816), constitute that people of
Europe in which the national sentiment is
strongest. It has profited by its twenty-five
years of revolution; but, unfortunately, the
class which the Revolution has raised has
not responded in any degree to its new
destinies. It has shown only corruption and
versatility. It has displayed in these last
crises neither talent nor character nor vir-
tue. It has lost the honor of the nation (See
Note 38).

Valor, the love of glory, is an instinct, a
sort of sixth sense, with the French. Many
a time in the heat of battle, my attention
has been arrested by the sight of a young
conscript, in his first engagement, throwing
himself into the struggle. Honor and cour-
age seemed to exude from every pore.

France will always be a great nation.

The Turks can be killed, but they can
never be conquered.

No one saw in my war in Spain the pos-
session of the Mediterranean.
[ 144]

Sociology

Europe is a molehill. It has never had
any great empires, like those of the Orient,
numbering six hundred million souls.

Antwerp is ever a loaded pistol aimed at
the heart of England.

England is the only power whose interest
it is that France shall not have Belgium ; and
as long as England will not allow France to
possess that country, there is no sincerity
in her alliance.

Whoever possesses Constantinople ought
to rule the world.

When the Russians make themselves
masters of Constantinople, they will be able
to retain as many Moslems there as they
care to, by assuring them of their property
rights, and tolerating their religion. The
Moors of Spain submitted to everything,
even the inquisition, and it took an order
from Ferdinand and Isabella to expel them.

I have inplanted in the Italians principles
which will never be eradicated, but which

[145]

Napoleon in His Own Words

will go on forever working out their natural
results.

It will take a skilful legislator to develop
a taste for arms among the Italians.

One of my cherished thoughts has been
to reunite and reestablish, geographically,
the peoples which revolutions and politics
have broken up and parcelled out. There
are in Europe thirty million French, fifteen
million Spaniards, fifteen million Italians,
thirty million Germans, and twenty million
Poles ; I would make of each, one nation.
The impulse has been given, each of these
results will be accomplished; and it is my
thought which will have served the future
destiny of Europe (See Note

Europe has its history, often tragic,
though at intervals consoling. But to speak
of any universally recognized national rights
or that these rights have played any part in
its history, is to play with the powers of
public credulity. Always the first duty of a
state has been its safety; the pledge of its
safety, its power; and the limits of its power,

Sociology

that intelligence of which each has been
made the depository. When the great pow-
ers have proclaimed any other principle, it
has been only for their own purposes, and
the smaller powers have never received any
benefit from it. Poland, Venice, have dis-
appeared from the earth as states, while the
assembled spectators have seen in these
political funerals nothing but their own loss.
Whenever there has been a partition of
spoils, or compensation given in lieu of them,
there has been no suggestion of ambition.
But these compensations, though they have
always been exacted in the name of justice,
have always, in fact, been in the name of
force. That is all there is of reality in the
pretended European Code. That is what our
modern statesmen have called their " balance
of power," a ridiculous term which, to the
wars engendered by pure ambition, has
added other wars. It is a mistaken theory
which has furnished pretext for many iniq-
uities, but which has saved the weak, only
when the strong have not known just how to
get around it. From this so-called great prin-
ciple there have followed two things, each
historically true. One is that each state

Napoleon in His Own Words

claims the right to control interests foreign
to itself when those interests are such that
it can control them without putting its own
interests in danger. The other principle is
that the other powers only recognize this
right of intervening in proportion as the
country doing it has the power to do it.

NOTES

Note I. — Napoleon gave the seal of sincerity
to this extremely cynical philosophy, by his ejacu-
lation, " Oh, well ; a rival the less," when told of
the death of General Kleber by assassination in
Cairo, June 14, 1800. Kleber was undoubtedly
one of the greatest generals of the French revo-
lutionary epoch.

Note 2. — This is generally looked on as Na-
poleon's own idealization and defense of himself
and of his seizure of power, the successive steps
by which he sought to make himself the founder
of a dynasty, and of the despotic character of his
government.

Note 3. — Acting, at least to some extent, in the
spirit here enunciated, Napoleon in 1802 instituted
the Order of the Legion of Honor. All previ-
ously existing French military or religious orders
— those of | St. Michael, the Holy Ghost, St.
Louis, and Military Merit, as well as the united
orders of St. Lazarus and Our Lady of Mount
Carmel had been abolished at the Revolution.
The Legion of Honor survived the restoration of
the Bourbons, indeed was adopted by them,
though modified in some particulars, while the
old orders were restored. It has maintained itself
through all political changes, and since the estab-

[149]

Napoleon in His Own Words

lishment of the Third Republic has been the only
military order in France — for it is essentially
military in character, though not strictly confined
to the recognition of military merit. It is con-
ferred for distinguished services of any kind, and
is not limited to citizens of France. The order
has occasionally been conferred on women, as for
instance on Rosa Bonheur, the painter, and on
Madame Curie, who with her husband discovered
radium.

Note 4. — The necessity for a code in France
grew out of the immense number of separate sys-
tems of jurisprudence existing in the country be-
fore 1789, justifying Voltaire's sarcasm that a
traveler in France had to change laws about as
often as he changed horses. The conception of
a general code for the whole country had oc-
curred to statesmen and jurists before Napoleon;
and the Convention, in fact, discussed two proj-
ects presented by Cambaceres, one of which had
been found too complicated and the other too
condensed.

Napoleon, on becoming Consul, appointed a
commission headed by M. Tronchet to review
previous efforts and to present a new project.
In four months the project was presented to the
government, submitted to the judges, and dis-
cussed by the Council of State — Napoleon him-
self taking part in the deliberations. At first pub-
lished under the title of Code Civil des Francais,
it was afterwards called the Code Napoleon —
the Emperor wishing to attach his name to a
work which he regarded as the greatest glory of
his reign.

[150]

Notes

The Code Napoleon consists of 2,281 articles,
arranged under titles and divided into three books,
preceded by a preliminary title. The subjects of
the different books are, first, " Des Personnes " ;
second, " Des biens et des differents modifications
de la propriete " ; third, " Des differents manieres
d'acquerir la propriete." It has passed through
several changes caused by the political vicissitudes
of the country, and it has, of course, suffered
from time to time important alterations in sub-
stance, but it still remains virtually the same in
principle as it left the hands of its framers.

The remaining French codes are the " Code de
Procedure civile," " Code de Commerce," " Code
d'instruction criminelle," and the " Code penal."

The merits of the Code Napoleon have entered
into the discussion on the general subject of
codification. Austin agrees with Savigny in con-
demning the ignorance and haste with which it
was compiled. " It contains," says Austin, " no
definitions of technical terms (even the most lead-
ing), no exposition of the rationale of distinc-
tions (even the most leading), no exposition of
the broad principles and rules to which the nar-
rower provisions in the code are subordinate —
hence its fallacious brevity." All the French
Codes have, however, taken firm root in most of
the continental countries of Europe. Introduced
by French conquest, they nevertheless were
eagerly adopted by the people after the French
arms had been withdrawn.

Note 5. — Henry iv (1553-1610), son of An-
tony of Bourbon, King of Navarre, and Jeanne
of Albret, was, on his father's side, the tenth in

[151]

Napoleon in His Own Words

descent from Saint Louis. He was brought up a
Calvinist by his mother. In 1571 he married Mar-
garet of Valois, daughter of Catherine de Medici.
He escaped the massacre of St. Bartholomew only
by professing Catholicism, but on his escape
from court in 1575 he became the acknowledged
head of the Huguenots, and by his dashing brav-
ery kept life in their dispirited forces. He had all
the qualities of a guerilla leader, though he was
not a great general. His conversion to Catholi-
cism in 1593 proved of great political advantage,
and by 1598 he had overcome all important op-
posing influences. He issued the Edict of Nantes
in April, 1598, and from that time on devoted
his energies to the restoration of the country dev-
astated by nearly forty years of civil war. The
organizing genius of Maximilian of Bethune,
Duke of Sully, restored the finances, and agricul-
ture, manufactures, and commerce made mar-
velous advances.

Henry was assassinated by Ravaillac, May 14,
1610.

Philip iv, known as Philip the Fair, King of
France, was born in 1268 and died in 1314. His
was a troubled reign, including a controversy
with Pope Boniface vin; and while Philip the
Fair in his personality does not challenge our
sympathy, he stands as one of the great figures in
French history. He is thought of as the first
sovereign in the modern sense. He made himself
the head of both the temporal power and the
church in France, freed himself in large degree
from the feudal lords, increased the royal domain,
and greatly developed both administrative and
judicial institutions.

[152]

Notes

Note 6. — Voltaire, whose real name was Fran-
cois Marie Arouet, was born in Paris in 1694 and
died there in 1778. He began to call himself
Arouet de Voltaire, or simply Voltaire, after his
release from the Bastille in April, 1718. His
father was a prosperous notary from whom he
inherited a comfortable fortune; and Voltaire,
himself, had the money-making ability, not wholly
free from unscrupulousness, and amassed a con-
siderable fortune. To his own age Voltaire was
preeminently a poet and philosopher. Later ages
have questioned whether he was entitled to either
name. But he exercised a wonderful influence on
his own century, an influence that was in many
aspects very largely beneficial. Throughout his
whole life he was the opponent of intolerance,
especially of religious and political intolerance.
No other writer has written on as great a variety
of subjects as he, nor as much, and everything he
wrote was French in its limpid clearness, ele-
gance, precision, and purity of style. The most
diametrically opposite opinions have been held of
him, but there can be little doubt that he was one
of the great men not only of his time but of all
times.

Note 7. — The Encyclopedists is a name by
which the world designates that wonderful body
of men, D'Alembert, Diderot, Voltaire, Montes-
quieu, Rousseau, and their associates, who wrote,
edited and otherwise prepared that marvelous
work, the French Encyclopedia, published during
the period from 1751 to 1772. No encyclopedia
perhaps has been of such political importance, or
has occupied so conspicuous a place in the civil

[153]

Napoleon in His Own Words

and literary history of its century. It sought not
only to give information but to guide opinion.
It was theistic but heretical.

It was opposed to the church, then all powerful
in France, and it treated dogma historically. It
was a war machine. As it progressed, its attacks
both on the church and on the still more despotic
government, became bolder and more undisguised,
and it was met by opposition and persecution
unparalleled in the history of encyclopedias. The
preliminary discourse by D'Alembert printed with
the first volume gives an admirable and compre-
hensive view of the scope and extent of human
knowledge as it existed at the period immediately
preceding the French Revolution, and from this
point of view is the most important philosophic
work of the eighteenth century. The Encyclo-
pedia in many ways prepared the way for the
Revolution by spreading knowledge, awakening
inquiry and intelligence, and by the direction it
gave to thought regarding human rights.

Note 8. — Fenelon, Francois de Salignac de la
Mothe, Archbishop of Cambray and one of the
most celebrated names in the intellectual and ec-
clesiastical history of France in the seventeenth
century, was born August 6, 1651, and died Janu-
ary 17, 1715. He came of a family ennobled
from the middle of the fifteenth century which
gave many distinguished names to France. He
became the preceptor of the young Duke of Bur-
gundy, a violent and impetuous, but affectionate
and bright child, whom he developed into a well-
disciplined and promising youth whose life, if
spared, might have brought blessing to France.

[154]

Notes

For the instruction of his pupil, Fenelon wrote,
among other things, his celebrated Telemaque.
In this his enemies saw covert criticisms of the
government of Louis xiv, and the publication of
this work resulted in his losing the royal favor.
Out of the Quietist doctrines, championed by
Madame Guyon, which he scrupled to condemn,
there grew a bitter controversy with Bossuet, and
Fenelon was condemned by the Holy See. He
submitted to this decision and spent the remainder
of his life in his diocese in ceaseless works of
Christian piety and charity, becoming more hon-
ored in his retirement than he had been in Paris.
Fenelon is chiefly remembered for the beauty
of his character, his tender and mystic devotion,
and the charm of his style as a writer. He is
not great as a thinker, nor can the substance of
his writings be said to have a permanent value.
But there is the same subtle delicacy, sensibility,
tenderness, and purity of expression in his style
as in his character. An exquisite, highly-toned,
and noble genius pervades the one as the other.
As a man he is one of the greatest figures in a
great time. As a writer he has been placed in
prose on the same level with Racine in poetry.
In both there is the same full harmony and clear-
ness, the same combination of natural grace with
perfect art.

Note 9. — Jean de la Fontaine was born in
1621 and died in 1695. His fame as a poet is
based on his tales and his fables. The latter
have an irresistible charm and have become uni-
versal property, accepted by every age since
his. They touch the most diverse human

[155]

Napoleon in His Own Words

qualities, but always with delicious originality.
They are veritable creations. No one has
rivaled him in the exquisite grace, the malicious
good humor, the simplicity, and naturalness with
which he makes the personages of his fables
speak, nor in the perfect art of his style. While
in these fables he has given expression to a few
sentiments of personal egotism, on the whole his
works bear the imprint of the engaging sweetness,
the innocent kindliness, and the sensibility of his
nature.

Note 10. — Jean Racine, celebrated French
tragic poet, was born in 1639 and died in 1699.
He was the friend of Boileau, La Fontaine, and
Moliere. In some respects the rival of Corneille,
his works are gentler, nearer nature, and more
human in their touch. While Corneille sought
complicated plots within which his heroes de-
ployed their superhuman qualities, Racine sought
simple, clear plots, in which the delineation of
passions in simple fidelity to truth was his effort.
His influence on the French language of his time
was both extensive and beneficial. Among his
principal tragedies are, Andromaque, Britannicus,
Mithridate, Iphigenie, and Phedre, and the sacred
tragedies, Esther, and Athalie.

Note ii. — Tartu ffe is a comedy in five acts by
Moliere, and the masterpiece of French comedy.
Tartuffe, the chief character, will always remain
the type of perversity and dissimulated corruption
under an exterior of respectability; in other
words, of hypocrisy. Many passages of the com-
edy have passed into the language as proverbs.

[156]

Notes

Note 12. — Gil Bias is one of the most cele-
brated romances in literature. It was written by
Alain Rene le Sage, a Frenchman (1668-1747),
the creator of the romance of manners. Gil Bias,
the hero of the story, has become the type of the
well-brought-up and instructed young man living
constantly by expedients more or less doubtful,
and who is constantly throwing himself into new
adventures.

Note 13. — Francois Rene de Chateaubriand, an
illustrious French writer (1768-1848), traveled
in America, returning to France just as the Rev-
olution began. He became an emigre in 1792.
After the Restoration he was minister of foreign
affairs. The most salient qualities of his style
are brilliancy, wealth of imagination, and a gor-
geous eloquence. He exercised a considerable
influence on the development of romantic litera-
ture. Posterity has not found the same value in
his writings that his contemporaries did. The
Genius of Christianity is the work by which he
is best known to English readers.

Note 14. — Jean Francois de la Harpe (1739-'
1803), was a French poet and literary critic.
Among others of his works is a Cours de Lit-
terature, which is excellent, especially for the
seventeenth century.

Note 15. — Madame de Stael (1766-1817), was
the daughter of the famous financier Necker.
Her husband was Eric Magnus, Baron of Stael-
Holstein, Ambassador of Sweden to France. Her
marriage was largely one of convenience. Her

[157]

Napoleon in His Own Words

husband obtained money, and she a position; but
there was no scandal. They had three children.
She was ambitious for power and influence in a
noisy extravagant way, though honest and sincere
in her political convictions, which were liberal.
Just why there should have been the bitterness
between Napoleon and herself it is hard to say.
She was a woman of influence, and it doubtless
displeased Napoleon that she should show herself
recalcitrant to his influence. But it also doubtless
pleased Madame de Stael to quite an equal degree,
that Napoleon should apparently put forth his
power to crush her and fail. Napoleon's course
toward her was little creditable to him. He exiled
her from France and he suppressed her book
Germany, after it had been passed by the censor.
Coppet is a Swiss village on the Lake of Geneva
where she made her home during much of her
exile. Her books, of which Corinne and Delphine
are probably the best known, were given extrava-
gant praise during her life, but are now little
read. Her son edited an edition of her writings
in seventeen volumes. She counted among those
whom she greatly influenced, Benjamin Constant,
Schlegel, Talleyrand, Narbonne, Jaucourt, Gui-
bert, Byron, and many others. She was a re-
markable woman in many ways, and as Napoleon
said, " she will endure."

Note 16. — Armide and Clorinde, or, as they are
known under the English spelling, Armida and
Clorinda, are two characters in Tasso's Jerusalem
Delivered. Armida, seductively beautiful, who
was sent forth by the infernal senate to sow dis-
cord in the Christian camp, turns the action of

Notes

the epic. Her name is often used to designate a
woman who fascinates by her seductive charms.
Clorinda, on the other hand, bravely donning ar-
mor, like Marfisa, fights in duel with her devoted
lover, receives baptism from his hands in her pa-
thetic death, and has become the type of the
courageous woman who scorns the fears and
weaknesses so natural to her sex.

Note 17. — Pierre Augustin, Caron de Beau-
marchais, was born in Paris in 1732 and died in
1799. He was the author of The Barber of Se-
ville, The Marriage of Figaro, and Mere Coupa-
ble, all of them audacious dramas, sparkling with
witty lines, full of movement and gaiety. Beau-
marchais was audacious and adventurous in char-
acter, and he has left some remarkable and
curious Memoirs, the material for which grew
largely out of his controversies with Counsellor
Goezman.

Note 18. — The Theatre Francaise, or as it has
for a long time been known, the Comedie Fran-
caise, was founded by Louis xiv in 1680. It had
exclusive rights until the Revolution, when the
liberty of the theatre, among other liberties, was
proclaimed; and there were soon no less than
fifty theatres in Paris. In 1807 the Empire re-
stricted the number to nine, and reinstated the
Theatre Francaise in sole possession (or nearly
such) of the right of performing the classic
drama.

Note 19. — The Chateau, or Palace, of Ver-
sailles was designed by Mansard for Louis xiv.

f'59]

]Napoleon in His Own Words

It was the favorite residence of the Bourbons for
a hundred years. The States-General met here in
May, 1789, and from this meeting dates the
French Revolution. The King of Prussia was
proclaimed Emperor of Germany here in 1871. It
was the residence of the President of the French
Republic from 1871 to 1879. Louis Phillipe re-
stored the palace to its ancient splendor. It is
one of the showplaces of France and is visited
annually by thousands.

Note 20. — In 1789 the Constituent Assembly
proclaimed that all authority emanated from the
nation, and that there was no authority in France
superior to the law. Conceiving that the per-
sistence of the old provinces with their variety
of local customs might be an obstacle to the
thorough working out of this idea, it abolished
these provinces, as administrative divisions, and
divided France into eighty-three departments
which were administered by locally elective offi-
cials for a time. The Revolutionary Government
took some of their power away from these, ap-
pointing a commissioner of its own in each de-
partment. When Napoleon became First Consul,
all elective representation in the department was
abolished and a prefect was appointed by him
for each. These prefects, each in his own de-
partment, controlled the entire departmental ad-
ministration: Conscription, taxation, agriculture,
commerce, public works, education, and charity —
" everything relating to the public wealth, the na-
tional prosperity, and the peace of those under
your Administration," as a circular of instructions
to prefects issued at the time, expressed it. This

[160]

Notes

system prevailed under the Consulate, the Empire,
and the Restoration. Decentralization and local
representation in departmental affairs began in
1830 and were extended after the revolution of
1848, and still further under the Republic. Though
the prefect has lost much of his former power,
he is still an important functionary. He repre-
sents the national government; he has a certain
veto or restraining power over mayors and mu-
nicipal councils; he is responsible for the public
order ; he can call for troops to suppress riots ; his
regulations regarding matters coming within the
scope of his authority have the force of law;
and he has the appointment of a large number
and variety of minor functionaries and public
employes, including the teachers in the public
schools.

Note 21. — The Battle of Rossbach was fought
November 5, 1757, between 25,000 Prussians, un-
der Frederick the Great, and 64,000 French and
Imperial troops — the French under the Duke of
Soubise and the Imperial troops under the Prince
of Hildburghausen. It was one of the decisive
battles of " The Seven Years War."

Note 22. — The body known as the University
of Paris was founded about 1150, and from its
beginning had very great privileges. It alone
had the control and direction of public instruc-
tion, and in addition had jurisdiction in other
particulars. On numerous occasions it took part
in public affairs. It defended the liberties of the
Church in France, and carried on long struggles
against certain religious orders. The Univer-

[161]

Napoleon in His Own Words

sity was suppressed in 1790, but was reorganized
by Napoleon in 1808. He put at the head of it a
Grand Master, and placed it directly under the
control of the state ; and France was territorially
divided into six academies, each presided over by
a Rector. At the present time the name Univer-
sities is given to the several bodies, which, each
in its own division of France, has direction and
control of higher education. These bodies are
all united in a Council of the University, of which
the Minister of Public Instruction is Grand
Master.

Note 23. — The Lycees are a system of free
schools for secondary instruction. They were
founded in Paris in 1787 for instruction in lit-
erature and science.

Note 24. — La Gabelle was a tax. on salt, a part
of a system of state salt monopoly under the
ancient regime in France. The price of salt
varied in different provinces. Each individual
was obliged to buy a certain amount of salt, re-
sulting in much that was vexatious in the enforce-
ment of the tax and the monopoly. This salt tax
was fully established in 1340 and was abolished
in 1789 with many other tyrannies and abuses by
the spirit of equality and freedom which brought
about the French Revolution.

Note 25. — In France the institution of juries
in criminal cases dates from 1791. It was one of
the fruits of the French Revolution, and in the
action and reaction of opinion that surged so
violently during the years immediately following,

[162]

Notes

it had hardly had time to become a firmly fixed
institution in Napoleon's day.

Note 26. — Achille de Harlay, President of the
Parliament of Paris, was born in Paris in 1536.
He died in 1619. Matthieu Mole (1584-1656),
President of the Parliament of Paris, and Keeper
of the Seal, played an important role during the
Fronde. He negotiated the Peace of Ruel early
in 1649.

Note 27. — At the Revolution the restrictions on
the freedom of the press were swept away, the
Assembly declaring it to be the right of every
citizen to print and publish his opinions. The
press remained effectually free in France until
the Law of February 5, 1810, secured by Na-
poleon, established a direction of the press. The
restrictions on the freedom of the press continued
to be a factor, 'in some degree, of every change in
the form of government from that time to the
establishment of the Third Republic, when liberty
of the press was completely reestablished.

Note 28. — The Bank of France, which had
been founded in 1799, was definitely organized by
the law of April 26, 1806, which gave the man-
agement of the bank to a governor and two
deputy governors, appointed by the chief of the
state, and assisted by a council of fifteen regents
and three censors, elected by the shareholders.
In addition to issuing bank notes which circulate
as freely as gold, the bank has all the usual
banking powers, and transacts a wide variety of
commercial and financial functions. It is the

[163]

Napoleon in His Own Words

great instrument of credit in France. By loans
in difficult circumstances it has more than once
supported the government, which owns a large
number of its shares.

Note 29. — Laissez faire, laissez passer, was the
maxim into which Gournay (1712-1759), one of
the leading members of that school of political
economists known as the Physiocrats, condensed
his doctrine of industrial freedom, which is that
trade and industry and every guiltless exercise of
individual will should be left free from taxation
or restriction or interference by government, ex-
cept so far as is required by public peace and
order. No English translation of the French
expression conveys any idea of the economic doc-
trine it embodies; and thus the expression itself,
usually abridged to laissez faire has been adopted
into our language as the term by which this doc-
trine is identified or understood.

Note 30. — Emigres is a name given to those
members of the French aristocracy, or more ex-
actly to those partisans of the old regime, who
fled from France beginning within a few days
after the fall of the Bastille, July 14, 1789. The
emigres appealed to foreign governments and
brought about armed invasion of their own
country.

Note 31. — The Island of Martinique is one of
the Lesser Antilles, and has been a French pos-
session, with short interruptions, for nearly three
hundred years. African slave labor was early
introduced, and by 1736 there were 72,000 blacks.

Notes

Slavery was abolished by the Convention in the
early course of the French Revolution, and in
1794 the island was taken possession of by the
English under Sir John Jervis and Sir Charles
Grey, and retained for eight years, and it is of
this action that Napoleon speaks. The Empress
Josephine was born in Martinique in 1763.

Note 32. — Joseph Balsamo, Count of Caglios-
tro, an Italian occultist, physician, and clever
charlatan, was born at Palermo, about 1743. He
had a successful career at the court of Louis xvi
and in Parisian society. He died in 1795.

Note 33. — Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804), one
of the greatest of philosophers, was the grandson
of a Scotchman who settled in East Prussia. He
was born at Konigsberg. He is best known by
his Critique of Pure Reason.

Note 34. — Turenne (1611-1675) was one of
France's greatest captains. In character he was
very simple, very modest. His military genius
utilized careful calculations and deep study and
thought. His memoirs have been published and
their value to students of military matters is
very great.

Note 35. — This is the philosophical summing
up of Napoleon's experience in Egypt. Nelson's
victory of the Nile, lost to Napoleon and the
French the control of the Mediterranean. The
Directory was no longer able to reenforce him.
In no way could he make up for the losses to his
army which even victories entailed. His army

[165]

Napoleon in His Own Words

became smaller and smaller; but, with that genius
for success which was the mainspring of his des-
tiny, Napoleon, after the Acre campaign, seized
the right moment and a plausible reason for
transferring the command to the less subtle
Kleber, and himself returned to France with the
luster of success not wholly dimmed, to embrace
opportunity, and command armies still animated
and recruited by the Republican youth of France.

Note 36. — General Forrest, the brilliant cav-
alry leader of the Confederacy, is said to have
expressed this guiding principle by declaring that
the way to win was to " get there first with the
most men."

Note 37. — By the campaign of March 20, Na-
poleon refers to the events following his return
from Elba and his arrival at Paris. He landed
March i, 1815, between Cannes and Antibes, and
twenty days later entered the Tuileries in triumph.
Louis xvin left the Tuileries March 19, and on
the next day Napoleon entered Paris.

Note 38. — Napoleon at this time had not been
long at St. Helena. It was still fresh in his mem-
ory that after his abdication June 22, 1815, in
favor of his son, the Chamber of Representa-
tives passed this son over, and named an execu-
tive commission of five, the Bourbons, in the
person of Louis xvm, thus being restored.

Note 39. — This utterance of Napoleon acquires
a particular significance at this time when, as a
result of the war between Germany and Austria

[166]

Notes

on the one side, and Russia, France, and Great
Britain on the other, so much has been said and is
being said of the possibility, as a result of this
war, of just what Napoleon expressed the desire
to do.

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THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY
WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH
DAY AND TO $t.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY
OVERDUE.

13

NOV 161942

FEB 2

REC'D LD

22 1944

';M7m

-S .•-

LD

.MOV 2 3

^Ulflft-

M136G24

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

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