g that we can _do_. Say nothing if one can do nothing!' He speaks
often so to his poor, discontented followers; he is like a piece of silent
Strength in the middle of their morbid querulousness there.

And accordingly, was there not what we can call a _faith_ in him, genuine
as far as it went? That this new enormous Democracy, asserting itself here
in the French revolution is an insuppressible fact, which the whole world,
with its old forces and institutions cannot put down: this was a true
insight of his, and took his conscience along with it--a _faith_. And did
he not interpret the dim purport of it well? 'The implements to him who
can handle them.' This actually is the truth, and even the whole truth; it
includes whatever the French revolution, or any revolution could mean.
Napoleon, in his first period, was a true Democrat. And yet by the nature
of him, fastened too by his military trade, he knew that democracy, if it
were a true thing at all, could not be an anarchy: the man had a
heart-hatred for anarchy. On that twentieth of June, (1792,) Bourrienne
and he sat in a coffee-house as the mail rolled by. Napoleon expresses the
deepest contempt for persons in authority that they do not restrain this
rabble. On the tenth of August he wonders there is no one to command these
poor Swiss; they could conquer if there were. Such a faith in democracy,
yet hatred of anarchy it is, that carries Napoleon through all his great
work. Through his brilliant Italian campaigns, onward to the peace of
Luben, one would say his inspiration is: 'Triumph to the French
revolution; assertion of it against these Austrian Simulacra that pretend
to call it a simulacrum!' Withal, however, he feels, and has a right to
feel, how necessary a strong authority is; how the revolution cannot
prosper at all without such. To bridle in that great devouring,
self-devouring French revolution; to _tame_ it, so that its intrinsic
purpose can be made good; that it may become organic, and be able to live
amongst other organisms and _formed_ things, not as a wasting destruction
alone; is not this still what he partly aimed at, as the true purport of
his life; nay, what he actually managed to do? Through Wagrams,
Austerlitzes; triumph after triumph; he triumphed so far. There was an eye
to see in this man, a soul to dare and do. He rose naturally to be the
king. All men saw that he _was_ such. The common soldiers used to say on
the march: 'These babbling _avocats_