Taine's Estimate of Napolean Bonaparte [pp. 384-397]

i887.] TAINE'S ESTIMATE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 389
nal Father, and announce my intention of offering homage to him
in that capacity, there is not a fishwoman that would not hiss at
me as I went by. People are too enlightened in our day." So
far as he dare he carries out this blasphemous desire by trespassing on Christian consciences, and at last he placed his hands
upon the pope and dragged him from his throne. We should
not like to be accused of superstition in dwelling upon this
event. It was one act, perhaps the most aggravated, in a long
series of deeds of presumption and overweening arrogance by
Napoleon Bonaparte, and the whole tendency of his career was
to ultimate ruin. But there is something ominous, to say the
least, if not prophetic, in the words which the venerable pontiff
addressed to the conqueror about his guns dropping from the
hands of his soldiers, as actually occurred in the mad Russian
campaign which shortly followed. M. Taine, a professed unbeliever, ranks Bonaparte's encroachment upon the church's rights
and his wanton treatment of the pope as among the foremost
causes of his fall. At present we must observe upon the general
extravagance of the man in his own conceit. "My peoples of
Italy," he explains to them, "ought to know me well enough not
to forget that I know more in my little finger than they know in
all their heads put together." He calls them "minors"; the
French and the rest of the world are the same compared to him.
A shrewd diplomatist, who knew him intimately for years, says:
"He looks upon himself as a being isolated in the world, created
to govern it and to drive all minds in his own harness."
Everybody that approached him had to renounce his individual will and become a mere tool of the presiding genius. He
would not tolerate intellectual or moral superiority, since they
might be compared with the power of Napoleon. His ministers
were reduced from counsellors and heads of departments to
mere dumb clerks obeying orders. His generals were treated
pretty much the same. A brilliant victory was often given to
the credit of a notorious dullard, while a skilful soldier as often
found himself robbed of his laurels. If the latter protested he
was bidden to hold his tongue, and allowed to recompense himself by plundering the conquered provinces. After making his
generals dukes or princes they found themselves as much slaves
as ever. He gave them enormous incomes, but he apportioned
them estates outside of France, and compelled them to spend all
they got in costly entertainments. By this means he kept them
under his thumb as securely as though they were the veriest
beggars. It was common to see a string of them besieging him