our vanity always alive The
severity of the republican government would have worried you to death.
What started the Revolution? Vanity. What will end it? Vanity, again.
Liberty is merely a pretext."--III., 153 "Liberty is the craving of a
small and privileged class by nature, with faculties superior to the
common run of men; this class, therefore, may be put under
restraint with impunity; equality, on the contrary, catches the
multitude."--Thibaudeau, 99: "What do I care for the opinions and cackle
of the drawing-room? I never heed it. I pay attention only to what rude
peasants say." His estimates of certain situations are masterpieces of
picturesque concision. "Why did I stop and sign the preliminaries of
Leoben? Because I played vingt-et-un and was satisfied with twenty." His
insight into (dramatic) character is that of the most sagacious critic.
"The 'Mahomet' of Voltaire is neither a prophet nor an Arab, only an
impostor graduated out of the Ecole Polytechnique."--"Madame de Genlis
tries to define virtue as if she were the discoverer of it."--(On Madame
de Stael): "This woman teaches people to think who never took to it, or
have forgotten how."--(On Chateaubriand, one of whose relations had just
been shot): "He will write a few pathetic pages and read them aloud in
the faubourg Saint-Germain; pretty women will shed tears, and that
will console him."--(On Abbe Delille): "He is wit in its dotage."--(On
Pasquier and Mole): "I make the most of one, and made the
other."--Madame de Remusat, II., 389, 391, 394, 399, 402; III., 67.]

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

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

[Footnote 1167: In "La Correspondance de Napoleon," published in
thirty-two volumes, the letters are arranged under dates.--In his
'"Correspondance avec Eugene, vice-roi d'Italie," they are arranged
under chapters; also with Joseph, King of Naples and afterwards King of
Spain. It is easy to select other chapters not less instructive: one on
foreign affairs (letters to M. de Champagny, M de Talleyrand, and M.
de Bassano); an