or by Vienna, after having annihilated the House of Austria.'"
XVII.
DREAMS OF A NEW RELIGION.
All this is before he has become Consul and Emperor; but even after he had reached the pinnacle of power the dream recurs again and again. "Since two hundred years," he said at Mayence, in 1804, "there is nothing more to do in Europe; it is only in the East that things can be carried out on a grand scale." And then, giving way to that extraordinary imagination of his, he says:
"'I created a religion; I saw myself on the road to Asia mounted on an elephant, with a turban on my head, and in my hand a new Koran, which I composed to suit myself.'"
This idea of founding a religion, and so exercising the same tyrannous influence on the future generations of men, as that which he exercised over his own generation, is a dream that constantly haunts him. Paris is to be the centre of the world. "I mean that every king shall build a grand palace in Paris for his own use. On the coronation of the Emperor of the French these kings will come and occupy it; they will grace this imposing ceremony with their presence, and honour it with their salutations." This is grandiose enough, but it is not all; the
