[Footnote 1245: M. de Metternich, "Mémoires," I., 241.--"Madame de Rémusat," I., 93: "That man has been so harmful (si assommateur de toute vertu...) to all virtue."--Madame de Staël, "Considerations sur la Revolution Française," 4th part, ch. 18. (Napoleon's conduct with M. de Melzi, to destroy him in public opinion in Milan, in 1805.)] [Footnote 1246: Madame de Rémusat, I., 106; II., 247, 336: "His means for governing man were all derived from those which tend to debase him. ... He tolerated virtue only when he could cover it with ridicule."] [Footnote 1247: Nearly all his false calculations are due to this defect, combined with an excess of constructive imagination.--Cf. De Pradt, p.94: "The Emperor is all system, all illusion, as one cannot fail to be when one is all imagination. Whoever has watched his course has noticed his creating for himself an imaginary Spain, an imaginary Catholicism, an imaginary England, an imaginary financial state, an imaginary noblesse, and still more an imaginary France, and, in late times, an imaginary congress."] [Footnote 1248: Roederer, III., 495. (March 8, 1804.)] [Footnote 1249: Ibid., III., 537 (February 11, 1809.)] [Footnote 1250: Roederer, III., 514. (November 4, 1804.)] [Footnote 1251: Marmont, II., 242.] [Footnote 1252: "Correspondance de Napoléon," I. (Letter to Prince Eugéne, April 14, 1806.)] [Footnote 1253: M. de Metternich, I., 284.] [Footnote 1254: Mollien, III., 427.] [Footnote 1255: "Notes par le Comte Chaptal": During the Consulate, "his opinion not being yet formed on many points, he allowed discussion and it was then possible to enlighten him and enforce an opinion once expressed in his presence. But, from the moment that he possessed ideas of his own, either true or false, on administrative subjects, he consulted no one;... he treated everybody who differed from him in opinion contemptuously, tried to make them appear ridiculous, and often exclaimed, giving his forehead a slap, that here was an instrument far more useful than the counsels of men who were commonly supposed to be instructed and experienced... For four years, he sought to gather around him the able men of both parties. After this, the choice of his agents began to be indifferent to him. Regarding himself as strong enough to rule and carry on the administration himself, the talents and character of those who stood in his way were discarded. What he wanted was valets and not councillors... The ministers were simply head-clerks of the bureaus. The Council of State served only to give form to the decrees emanating from him; he ruled even in petty details. Everybody around him was timid and passive; his will was regarded as that of an oracle and executed without reflection.... Self-isolated from other men, having concentrated in his own hands all powers and all action, thoroughly convinced that another's light and experience could be of no use to him, he thought that arms and hands were all that he required."]