The Modern Regime, Volume 1

Text Transcriber's Note : The numbering of Volumes, Books, Chapters and Sections are as in the French not the American edition. Annotations by the transcriber are initialled SR. Svend Rom, April 2000.
HTML Producer's Note : Footnote numbering has been changed to include as a prefix to the original footnote number, the book and chapter numbers. A table of contents has been added with active links. David Widger, June 2008
Please note that all references to earlier Volumes of the Origines of Contemporary France are to the American edition. Since there are no fixed page numbers in the Gutenberg edition these page numbers are only approximate. (SR).
Menthon Saint-Bernard, September, 1890.
He is of another race and another century.—Origin of his paternal family.—Transplanted to Corsica.—His maternal family.—Laetitia Ramolino.—Persistence of Corsican souvenirs in Napoleon's mind.—His youthful sentiments regarding Corsica and France.—Indications found in his early compositions and in his style.—Current monarchical or democratic ideas have no hold on him.—His impressions of the 20th of June and 10th of August after the 31st of May. —His associations with Robespierre and Barras without committing himself.—His sentiments and the side he takes Vendémiaire 13th.—The great Condottière.—His character and conduct in Italy.—Description of him morally and physically in 1798.—The early and sudden ascendancy which he exerts. Analogous in spirit and character to his Italian ancestors of the XVth century.
Losses, privations, and fatigue, says Napoleon, she endured all and braved all. Hers was a man's head on a woman's shoulders.
Thus fashioned and brought into the world, he felt that, from first to the last, he was of his people and country.
Ah, if the sections put me in command, I would guarantee to place them in the Tuileries in two hours and have all those Convention rascals driven out!
thus the fear he inspired was simply due to the singular effect of his person on almost all who approached him. I had met men worthy of respect and had likewise met men of ferocious character; but nothing in the impression which Bonaparte produced on me reminded me of either. I soon found, in the various opportunities I had of meeting him during his stay in Paris, that his character was not to be described in terms commonly employed; he was neither mild nor violent, nor gentle nor cruel, like certain personages one happens to know. A being like him, wholly unlike anybody else, could neither feel nor excite sympathy; he was both more and less than a man; his figure, intellect, and language bore the imprint of a foreign nationality.. .. far from being reassured on seeing Bonaparte oftener, he intimidated me more and more every day. I had a confused impression that he was not to be influenced by any emotion of sympathy or affection. He regards a human being as a fact, an object, and not as a fellow-creature. He neither hates nor loves, he exists for himself alone; the rest of humanity are so many ciphers. The force of his will consists in the imperturbable calculation of his egoism. He is a skillful player who has the human species for an antagonist, and whom he proposes to checkmate... Every time that I heard him talk I was struck with his superiority; it bore no resemblance to that of men informed and cultivated through study and social intercourse, such as we find in France and England. His conversation indicated the tact of circumstances, like that of the hunter in pursuit of his prey. His spirit seemed a cold, keen sword-blade, which freezes while it wounds. I felt a profound irony in his mind, which nothing great or beautiful could escape, not even his own fame, for he despised the nation whose suffrages he sought... — With him, everything was means or aims; spontaneity, whether for good or for evil, was entirely absent.