It grieved him to think that they styled him a furious demagogue, and called him the "Man of the 13th Vendémiaire," whereas, on the 13th Vendémiaire, he had been only the "Man of the Revolution," in other words, of the public interests. His instinctive inclination was, if not toward the Revolution, at least against the royalists. He was therefore pleased to note the republican spirit of the Revolution and to encourage it. His first success at Toulon had been against the royalists, his victory on the 13th Vendémiaire had also been against royalist forces. What were the five armies which he had defeated? Armies which supported the cause of the Bourbons; in other words, royalist armies. But that which, at this period of all others, when he was wavering between the safe rôle of Monk and the dangerous rôle of Cæsar, made him fling high the banner of the Republic, was his innate presentiment of his future grandeur. Even more than that, it was the proud feeling which he shared with Cæsar that he would rather be the first man in a country town than the second in Rome. Indeed, no matter how exalted a rank the king might confer upon him, even though it be that of Constable of France, that king would still be above him, casting a shadow upon his brow. Mounting with the aid of a king, he would never be more than an upstart; mounting by his own unaided efforts, he would be no upstart--he would stand upon his own feet. Under the Republic, on the contrary, he was already head and shoulders above the other men, and he could but continue to grow taller and taller. Perhaps his glance, piercing though it was, had not yet extended to the vast horizon which the Empire revealed to him; but there was in a republic an audacity of action and a breadth of enterprise which suited the audacity of his genius and the breadth of his ambition. As sometimes happens with men who are destined to greatness, and who perform impossible deeds--not because they are predestined to them, but because some one had prophesied that they would do them, and they thereafter regard themselves as favorites of Providence--the most insignificant facts, when presented in certain lights, often led to momentous resolves with Bonaparte. The duel which he had just witnessed, and the soldiers' quarrel respecting the words monsieur and citizen, had brought before him the whole question that was then agitating France. Faraud, in naming his general, Augereau, as an inflexible exponent of democracy, had indicated to Bonaparte the agent he was seeking to second him in his secret plans.