man who ploughs, manufactures, fights, marries, generates, toils, enjoys himself, and dies."
Taine dwells on the wonderful power, which, too, Napoleon derives from his Italian blood, of describing his thoughts. "His words," says Taine, "caught on the wing, and at the moment," are "vibrating and teeming with illustration and imagery." Here is a sample: "Adultery is no phenomenon; it is common enough—une affaire de canapé. . . . There should be some curb on women who commit adultery for trinkets, sentiment, Apollo and the Muses, etc."
Here are several others:
"'You Frenchmen are not in earnest about anything, except, perhaps, equality; and even this you would gladly give up, if you were sure of yourself being the first. . . . The hope of advancement in this world should be cherished by everybody. . . . Keep your 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. Liberty is the craving of a class small and privileged by nature, with faculties superior to the common run of men; this class may, therefore, be put under restraint with impunity; equality, on the contrary, catches the multitude.' 'What do I care for the opinions and cackle of the drawing-room; I never
