induced to appear on the public stage, or who was merely engaged in the active pursuits of life, governed himself or was governed otherwise than by his interests.' According to him, man is held through his egoistic passions, fear, cupidity, sensuality, self-esteem, and emulation; these are the mainsprings when he is not under excitement, when he reasons. Moreover, it is not difficult to turn the brain of man; for he is imaginative, credulous, and subject to being carried away; stimulate his pride or his vanity, provide him with an extreme and false opinion of himself and his fellow-men, and you can start him off, head downwards, wherever you please."
This theory of Napoleon sometimes finds difficulties in its way. There, for instance, are Lafayette and others, who have given proof of disinterestedness, loyalty, and zeal for the public good. But Napoleon is neither dismayed nor converted; whenever he meets such a man he tells him to his face that he regards him either as a conscious or a self-deceived impostor.
"'General Dumas,' says he abruptly to Mathieu Dumas, 'you were one of the imbeciles who believed in liberty?' 'Yes, sire, I was, and am still one of that class.' 'And you, like the rest, took part in the Revolution through ambition?' 'No, sire; I should have calculated badly, for I am now precisely where I stood in 1790.' 'You are not sufficiently aware of the motives which
