134
THE PRINCE.
as to convince every one that the more freely they speak the more they please him. As to the remainder of his subjects, he ought not to listen to them, but pursue his own course without deviation[1]
- ↑ This note and the following were written in the spring of 1809: they are not given as prophecies after the event, but as strongly mdicative of the truth of the system I have unfolded in the Introduction. "Though, from the high strain of hyperbole observable in all the addresses to Buonaparte, we may reasonably infer that he is not averse to fattery, yet we are without a single instance wherein he has suffered lhis reason to be intoxicated by its incense. He receives it as a matter of course, and pursues with steadiness the path that reason dictates: he chuses counsellors whom all the world acknowledge to possess superior minds: nor can a single instance be adduced where he has committed the fate of an army or of a diplomatic mission to the hauds of imbecility. "The Machiavelli of the preseut age, the Ex-Bishop of Autun is his constant attendant and adviser in all matters of inportance; and the Abhè Seyies, though sub rosa, is always at hand when wanted. Buonaparte performs his course steadily, surveys the future in the mirror of the past, aud, with a facility peculiar only to great miuds, adapts all his ideas to circumstances, and seldom fails to seize the critical moment propitious to his design. Hence we see him daily perform prodigies of celerity, prouptitude, and decision. Hic et ubique is his motto: he crushes one kingdom, and while another is congratulating itself on his being too remote, exhausted, and obliged to pause; in the midst of her reverie, Buonaparte assails and overwhelms her. This has been his conduct with the northern powers, and at the moment I write this he is pursuing the same measures. He has crushed the ricketed
