The officer answered, “Some bolts, nails, ropes, hatchets, saws—”
“How many of all that?”
The officer gave the number.
“Empty the wagon and let me see!”
The order was obeyed, bolts, nails, ropes, saws, everything taken out and counted. But the Emperor was not satisfied. He got off his horse, climbed into the wagon over the spoke to see that it had been emptied.
The troops shouted: “Bravo! That’s right! That is the way to find out!”
He compared his mind to a chest of drawers, where each subject occupied its separate space. In turn he opened each drawer. No one subject ever got mixed with another. When all the drawers were shut, he fell asleep. Of course this was not literally true, but during his best years it came as near being literally true as is possible to the human brain.
After the day’s work was done, he would enter into the amusements of his domestic circle, would play and dance with the young people, would read or listen to music, or would entertain the circle by telling some romantic story which he composed as he talked. In the evening he loved to have the room darkened while he threw the ladies into a gentle state of terror with a ghost-story.
Napoleon’s penetration in some directions was wonderfully keen; in others remarkably dull. For instance, it was almost impossible to deceive him in matters of account, the number of men in a mass, or the plan of battle of a foe. He would converse with an engineer in reference to a bridge he had been sent to build and which Napoleon supposed he had built; after a few words he would turn away and say to the prefect, “That man did not build the bridge—who did it?” The truth would come out: an obscure genius had planned the work, and Napoleon would say to this genius, obscure no more, “Come up higher.”
He could scan a list of political prisoners, pounce upon the name of a surgeon, decide at a flash that this man could not be a fanatic. “Bring him to trial, order him to be shot, and he will confess.” And it so happened.