[Footnote 1181: Villemain, "Souvenir contemporaines," I., 175. Napoleon's statement to M. de Narbonne early in March, 1812, and repeated by him to Villemain an hour afterwards. The wording is at second hand and merely a very good imitation, while the ideas are substantially Napoleon's. Cf. his fantasies about Italy and the Mediterranean, equally exaggerated ("Correspondence," XXX., 548), and an admirable improvisation on Spain and the colonies at Bayonne.--De Pradt. "Mémoires sur les revolutions d'Espagne," p.130: "Therefore Napoleon talked, or rather poetised; he Ossianized for a long time... like a man full of a sentiment which oppressed him, in an animated, picturesque style, and with the impetuosity, imagery, and originality which were familiar to him,... on the vast throne of Mexico and Peru, on the greatness of the sovereigns who should possess them.. .. and on the results which these great foundations would have on the universe. I had often heard him, but under no circumstances had I ever heard him develop such a wealth and compass of imagination. Whether it was the richness of his subject, or whether his faculties had become excited by the scene he conjured up, and all the chords of the instrument vibrated at once, he was sublime."] [Footnote 1182: Roederer, III., 541 (February 2, 1809): "I love power. But I love it as an artist.... I love it as a musician loves his violin, for the tones, chords, and harmonies he can get out of it."] CHAPTER II. HIS IDEAS, PASSIONS AND INTELLIGENCE. I. Intense Passions. Personality and character during the Italian Renaissance and during the present time.--Intensity of the passions in Bonaparte.--His excessive touchiness.--His immediate violence.--His impatience, rapidity, and need of talking. --His temperament, tension, and faults.