These several readings ended, he set to work; and it may be said without exaggeration, that he was then as extraordinary, as incomparable, as at the head of his armies.
As he would entrust to nobody the supreme care of the government, he saw every thing himself; and it is easy to conceive, on what a multiplicity of objects he had to fix his eyes. Independently of his ministers, the Duke of Bassano, the commandant of the first division of Paris, the prefect of the police, the inspector general of the gendarmerie, the major-general of guards, the grand marshal of the palace, the great officers of the crown, the aides-de-camp, and the orderly officers (officiers d'ordonnance) on missions, daily sent him circumstantial reports, which he examined, and answered immediately: it being a maxim with him, to put nothing off till to-morrow. And let it not be supposed, that he satisfied himself with a superficial judgment of affairs: he read every report through, and examined every voucher attentively. Frequently the super-human sagacity, with which he was gifted, enabled him to perceive errors and imperfections, that had escaped the scrutinizing eyes of his ministers; and then he corrected their labours. But still more frequently he fashioned them anew from beginning to end; and what was a fortnight's work to a whole ministry, scarcely cost the genius of Napoleon a few minutes.
The Emperor rarely sat down, but dictated as he walked about. He did not like to repeat his words; and if you asked him a word not clearly understood, he answered impatiently, "I said," and went on.
When he had to treat a subject worthy of himself, his style, habitually nervous and concise, rose to the level of his grand conceptions: it became majestic and sublime.
If the possibility of expressing his ideas was shackled by the want of the proper word; or if the customary terms did not appear to him sufficiently strong, sufficiently animated, he brought together words, that were astonished to find themselves in each other's company, and created a language of his own, a language rich and impressive, that might sometimes infringe established rules, but compensated this happy fault, by giving more loftiness and vigour to his thoughts[79].
Sometimes, hurried away by the impetuosity of his character, and eager to arrive more quickly at his object, he did not take time to weigh his words, his ideas, his desires. When his orders had been dictated to us in such a fit of hastiness, we were careful, as far as possible, not to present them for signing the same day. The next day, they were almost always modified, softened, or torn. Napoleon was never displeased with us, for endeavouring to guard him against the dangers of precipitancy. They who think, that he never corrected a false step, are mistaken: if under certain circumstances his determinations were inflexible, in a number of others he yielded to remonstrance, and relinquished his projects and resolves without difficulty.
The Emperor seldom wrote with his own hand. Words of many syllables were tedious to him; and, not having patience to write them at length, he mutilated them. This habit, added to the defective formation of his letters, rendered his writing altogether illegible. Frequently, too, from carelessness, or absence of mind, he infringed the laws of orthography; and people have not failed thence to infer, that he was completely ignorant.
Most assuredly the ignorance of Napoleon, were it proved, would detract nothing from his glory and renown. Charlemagne could scarcely sign his own name. Louis XIV., and I quote him by choice, though born on a throne, was unacquainted with the rules of grammar. Yet Charlemagne and Louis were nevertheless great kings. The imputation, however, is as false as it is absurd. Napoleon, educated at the school of Brienne, was distinguished there by that facility of comprehension, that disdain of pleasure, that fondness for study, that enthusiastic regard for models of greatness, which commonly indicate superior minds. Destined for the profession of arms, he would not aspire to become a man of letters, a man of reading, a learned man: his object, for he had an object in his earliest years, was to become some day a distinguished officer, perhaps even a great captain. It was to the military sciences, therefore, he bent his genius ... the universe knows the rest.
But do I say his genius? the detractors of Napoleon also assert, that his mind was too subject to irregularities, for the possession of genius to be granted him: do they not know, or do they pretend to be ignorant, that such irregularities are on the contrary the proof, the distinguishing characteristics, of this precious gift of nature.
"Genius," says one of our philosophers, "rises and stoops by turns; it is often imperfect, because it does not take the trouble to improve itself. It is great in great things, because they are adapted to excite its sublime instinct, and call it into action. It is negligent in ordinary things, because they are beneath it, and have nothing in them to stir it up: if, however, it do turn its attention to them, it fertilizes them, aggrandizes them, and gives them a new and unexpected appearance, that had escaped vulgar eyes."