His favourite saying during the continuance of his power was, "I am the State;" and in the exile of St. Helena he constantly talked of himself as having been, from necessity, the Dictator of France. In effect no despotism within many degrees so complete and rigid was every before established in a civilised and Christian country. The whole territory was divided into prefectures--each prefect being appointed by Napoleon--carefully selected for a province with which he had no domestic relations--largely paid--and entrusted with such a complete delegation of power that, in Napoleon's own language, each was in his department an _Empereur à petit pied_. Each of these officers had under his entire control inferior local magistrates, holding power from him as he did from the Emperor: each had his instructions direct from Paris; each was bound by every motive of interest to serve, to the utmost of his ability, the government from which all things were derived, to be hoped for, and to be dreaded. Wherever the Emperor was, in the midst of his hottest campaigns, he examined the details of administration at home more closely than, perhaps, any other sovereign of half so great an empire did during the profoundest peace. It was said of him that his dearest amusement, when he had nothing else to do, was to solve problems in algebra or geometry. He carried this passion into every department of affairs; and having, with his own eye, detected some errors of importance in the public accounts, shortly after his administration began, there prevailed thenceforth in all the financial records of the state such clearness and accuracy as are not often exemplified in those of a large private fortune. Nothing was below his attention, and he found time for everything. The humblest functionary discharged his duty under a lively sense of the Emperor's personal superintendence; and the omnipresence of his police came in lieu, wherever politics were not touched upon, of the guarding powers of a free press, a free senate, and public opinion. Except in political cases the trial by jury was the right of every citizen. The _Code Napoleon_, that elaborate system of jurisprudence, in the formation of which the Emperor laboured personally along with the most eminent lawyers and enlightened men of the time, was a boon of inestimable value to France. "I shall go down to posterity" (said he, with just pride) "with the Code in my hand." It was the first uniform system of laws which the French Monarchy had ever possessed: and being drawn up with consummate skill and wisdom, it at this day forms the code not only of France, but of a great portion of Europe besides. Justice, as between man and man, was administered on sound and fixed principles, and by unimpeached tribunals. The arbitrary Commission Courts of Napoleon interfered with nothing but offences, real or alleged, against his authority.