Parisians like any other good condottiere, who, holding himself in reserve, inclines to the first that offers, and then to whoso offers the most, prepared to back out afterwards, and who finally grabs anything he can get."
And it is as a condottiere that Taine regards Napoleon to the end. From this point of view he surveys his whole career, and here is the result of the inspection:
"He is like a condottiere, that is to say, a leader of a band, getting more and more independent, pretending to submit under the pretext of public good, looking out solely for his own interest, centreing all on himself, general on his own account and for his own advantage in his Italian campaign before and after the 18th of Fructidor. Still he was a condottiere of the first class, already aspiring to the loftiest summits, 'with no stopping-place but the throne or the scaffold,' 'determined to master France, and Europe through France, ever occupied with his own plans, and demanding only three hours' sleep a night'; making playthings of ideas, people, religions, and governments; managing mankind with incomparable dexterity and brutality; in the choice of means, as of ends, a superior artist, inexhaustible in prestige, seduction, corruption, and intimidation; wonderful, and far more terrible than any wild beast suddenly turned on to a herd of browsing cattle. The expression is not too strong, and was uttered by an eye-
