ystem." (Letter to
Louis, King of Holland, Nov. 13, 1807.)--To the Spaniards: "Your nephews
will honor me as their regenerator." (Allocution addressed to Madrid
Dec. 9, 1808.)--"Spain must be French. The country must be French and
the government must be French." (Roederer, III., 529, 536, words of
Napoleon, Feb. 11, 1809.)--In short, following the example of Rome,
which had Latinized the entire Mediterranean coast, he wanted to render
all western Europe French. The object was, as he declared, "to establish
and consecrate at last the empire of reason and the full exercise, the
complete enjoyment of every human faculty." (Memorial.)]

BOOK THIRD. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM.

CHAPTER I. RECOVERY OF SOCIAL ORDER.

I. Rule as the mass want to be ruled.

How Napoleon comprehends the sovereignty of the people.--His
maxim on the will of the majority and on the office of
government.--Two groups of prominent and obvious desires in
1799.

However clear and energetic his artistic convictions may be, his mind
is absorbed by the preoccupations of the ruler: It is not enough for him
that his edifice should be monumental, symmetrical, and beautiful. As he
lives in it and derives the greatest benefit from it, he wants first
of all that it should be fit to live in, habitable for Frenchmen of
the year 1800. Consequently, he takes into account the habits and
dispositions of his tenants, the pressing and permanent wants. But these
needs must not be theoretic and vague, but verified and defined; for he
is as accurate as he is shrewd, and deals only with positive facts.

"My political system," says he to the Council of State,[3101] "is
to rule men as the mass want to be ruled... By constituting myself a
Catholic I put an end to the war in La Vendee; by turning into a Moslem
I established myself in Egypt: by turning ultramontane[3102] I gained
over the priests in Italy. Were I to govern a population of Jews, I
would restore the temple of Solomon. I shall speak just in this fashion
about liberty in the free part of St. Domingo; I shall confirm slavery
in the Ile-de-France and even in the slave section of St. Domingo, with
the reservation of diminishing and limiting slavery where I maintain
it, and of restoring order and keeping up discipline where I maintain
freedom. I think that is the way to recognize the sovereignty of the
people."

"Now, in France, at this epoch, there are two groups of p