here you will find honour, fame, and wealth." His first success was
notable, but it did not satisfy the inordinate craving of his nature.
"In our days," he told Marmont, "no one has conceived anything great;
it falls to me to give the example."

From the outset he looked upon himself as a general independent of the
Republic. He was rich in booty, and could pay his men without
appealing to the well-nigh exhausted public funds. Silently, he
pursued his own policy in war, and that was very different from the
policy of any general who had gone before him. He treated with the
Pope as a great prince might have treated, offering protection to
persecuted priests who were marked out by the Directory as their
enemies. He seized property everywhere, scorning to observe
neutrality. Forgetting his Italian blood, he carried off many pictures
and statues from the Italian galleries that they might be sent to
France. He showed now his audacity and the amazing energy of his plans
of conquest. The effect of the horror and disorders of Revolutionary
wars had been to deprive him of all scruples. He despised a Republic,
and despised the French nation as unfit for Republicanism. "A republic
of thirty millions of people!" he exclaimed as he conquered Italy,
"with our morals, our vices! How is such a thing possible? The nation
wants a chief, a chief covered with glory, not theories of {174}
government, phrases, ideological essays, that the French do not
understand. They want some playthings; that will be enough; they will
play with them and let themselves be led, always supposing they are
cleverly prevented from seeing the goal toward which they are moving."
But the wily Corsican did not often speak so plainly! Aiming at
imperial power, he was careful to dissimulate his intentions since the
army supporting him was Republican in sympathy.

Napoleon had achieved the conquest of Italy when only twenty-seven. In
1796 he entered Milan amid the acclamations of the people, his troops
passing beneath a triumphal arch. The Italians from that day adopted
his tricolour ensign.

The Directory gave the conqueror the command of the army which was to
be used against England. The old desperate rivalry had broken out
again now that the French saw a chance of regaining power in India. It
was Napoleon's purpose to wage war in Egypt, and he needed much money
for his campaign in a distant country. During the conquest of Italy he
had managed to