He cultivated the influential men of the country, and encouraged the belief that he himself might become a Mussulman. In truth, Napoleon admired Mahomet greatly, and he never shrank from saying so, then or afterward. In the classification of the books of his private library, made in his own writing, he grouped under the same head the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, and Mythology, and Montesquieu’s _Spirit of Laws_. These he enumerated in the class of _Politics and Morals_. He reminded his soldiers that the Roman legions had respected all religions. He did not remind them that Roman rulers had considered all religions as equally useful for purposes of government; nor that Roman philosophers had regarded them all as equally sons and daughters of that primeval pair, Fear and Fraud--fear of the unknown, and the fraud which practises upon it. Napoleon found that Mahometan priests were as eager to convert him as Christian priests had been to capture Constantine and Clovis. In the one case as in the other, the priests were willing to compromise the creed to gain the convert. Napoleon did not quite join the faithful himself, but he approved of General Menou’s apostasy, and he ostentatiously observed the Mahometan festivals. Both Napoleon and Bourrienne denied, as others assert, that he went into the mosque, sat cross-legged on the cushion amid the faithful, muttered Koran verses as they did, and rolled head and body about as a good Mussulman should. If he did not do so it was because he thought, as a matter of policy, that the act would not compensate him for the trouble and the ridicule. He afterward did just about that much for the Christian religion; and faith had no more to do with his conduct in the one case than in the other. As he went farther with the Jacobins than it was pleasant to remember, so he probably went farther with the Mahometans than he cared to admit; for he certainly prevailed upon the priesthood to do that which was forbidden by the Koran unless he was a convert. They officially directed the people to obey him and pay him tribute. Nor is there any doubt that the leaders among the priests liked him well enough, personally, to watch over his personal safety. General Kléber, who succeeded him in command, neglected to pay the chiefs those attentions Napoleon had lavished upon them, and in turn they neglected him. To this, perhaps, his assassination was due.