state of
his thoughts; he complained that they did not sufficiently appreciate
his position. "Can you not see," said he to them, "that as I was not
born upon a throne, I must support myself on it, as I ascended it, by
my renown? that it is necessary for it to go on increasing; that a
private individual, become a sovereign like myself, can no longer stop;
that he must be continually ascending, and that to remain stationary
will be his ruin?"

He then depicted to them all the ancient dynasties armed against his,
devising plots, preparing wars, and seeking to destroy, in his person,
the dangerous example of a _roi parvenu_. It was on that account that
every peace appeared in his eyes a conspiracy of the weak against the
strong, of the vanquished against the victor; and especially of the
great by birth against the great by their own exertions. So many
successive coalitions had confirmed him in that apprehension! Indeed, he
often thought of no longer tolerating an ancient power in Europe, of
constituting himself into an epoch, of becoming a new era for thrones;
in short, of making every thing take its date from him.

It was in this manner that he disclosed his inmost thoughts to his
family by those vivid pictures of his political position, which, at the
present day, will probably appear neither false nor over-coloured: and
yet the gentle Josephine, always occupied with the task of restraining
and calming him, often gave him to understand "that, along with the
consciousness of his superior genius, he never seemed to possess
sufficient consciousness of his own power: that, like all jealous
characters, he incessantly required fresh proofs of its existence. How
came it, amidst the noisy acclamations of Europe, that his anxious ear
could hear the few solitary voices which disputed his legitimacy? that
in this manner his troubled spirit was always seeking agitation as its
element: that strong as he was to desire, but feeble to enjoy, he
himself, therefore, would be the only one whom he could never conquer."

But in 1811 Josephine was separated from Napoleon, and although he still
continued to visit her in her seclusion, the voice of that empress had
lost the influence which continual intercourse, familiar habits of
affection, and the desire of mutual confidence, impart.

Meanwhile, fresh disagreements with the pope complicated the relations
of France. Napoleon then addressed himself to cardinal Fesch. Fesch was
a zealous churc