So that, if he defends liberty, it is to ruin his adversaries; if he defends power, it is to accustom the Romans to tyranny. Finally, if Cæsar seeks the consulate, like all the members of the Roman nobility, it is, say they, because he already foresees, beyond the fasces of the consul and the dust of battles, the dictatorship and even the throne. Such an interpretation results from the too common fault of not being able to appreciate facts in themselves, but according to the complexion which subsequent events have given them. Strange inconsistency, to impute to great men at the same time mean motives and superhuman forethought! No, it was not the miserable thought of checking Cicero which guided Cæsar; he had not recourse to a tactic more or less skilful: he obeyed a profound conviction, and what proves it indisputably is, that, once elevated to power, his first acts are to execute, as consul or dictator, what as a citizen he had supported: witness the agrarian law and the restoration of the proscribed. No, if he supports Pompey, it is not because he thinks that he can degrade him after having once elevated him, but because this illustrious captain had embraced the same cause as himself; for it would not have been given to any one to read so far into the future as to predict the use which the conqueror of Mithridates would make of his triumphs and veritable popularity. In fact, when he disembarked in Italy, Rome was in anxiety: will he disband his army?[1219] Such was from all quarters the cry of alarm. If he returns as a master, no one is able to resist him. Contrary to the general expectation, Pompey disbanded his troops. How then could Cæsar foresee beforehand a moderation then so unusual? Is it truer to say that Cæsar, having become proconsul, aspired to the sovereign power? No; in departing for Gaul, he could no more have thought of reigning over Rome, than could General Buonaparte, starting for Italy in 1796, have dreamed of the Empire. Was it possible for Cæsar to foresee that, during a sojourn of ten years in Gaul, he would there link Fortune to him for ever, and that, at the end of this long space of time, the public mind at Rome would still be favourable to his projects? Could he foresee that the death of his daughter would break the ties which attached him to Pompey? that Crassus, instead of returning in triumph from the East, would be conquered and slain by the Parthians? that the murder of Clodius would throw all Italy into commotion? and, finally, that anarchy, which he had sought to stifle by the triumvirate, would be the cause of his own elevation? Cæsar had before his eyes great examples for his guidance; he marched in the track of the Scipios and of Paulus Æmilius; the hatred of his enemies forced him, like Sylla, to seize upon the dictatorship, but for a more noble cause, and by a course of proceeding exempt from vengeance and cruelty.