In what retirement should he compose this new work? Genoa had inspired the two books which he wrote as a convalescent, _The Dawn of Day_ and _The Gay Science;_ Rapallo, Nice, had inspired _Zarathustra._ He now thought of Corsica. For long he had been curious about this savage island, and, in the island itself, of a town, Corte-- "There Napoleon was not born but--what is perhaps more important--conceived, and is it not the clearly indicated spot in which I should undertake the transvaluation of all values? ... For me, too, it is a _conception_ that is in question." Alas! this Napoleonic work, the title of which alone should strike terror, thus struck its author. Nietzsche was not unaware whither that _"via mala des consequences"_ which he had been long following led him. Since a covetous, conquering force is at the heart of nature, every act which does not correspond precisely with this force is inexact and feeble. He said this, he wrote it, and such indeed was his thought: man is never so great as when he combines an alertness and refinement of mind with a certain native brutality and cruelty of instinct. Thus the Greeks understood _virtu,_ and the Italians _virtù._ The French politicians, and, after them, Frederick II., Napoleon and Bismarck, acted in accordance with these maxims. Troubled by his doubts, lost in his problem, Nietzsche firmly grasped this fragmentary but certain truth: _one must have the courage of psychological nudity,_ he was to write. He trained himself to it, but remained dissatisfied. His mind was too clear, his soul too pensive, and this definition of the strongest men was too curt and icy for his dreams. Formerly he had chosen Schiller and Mazzini for masters. Did he admire them no longer? No soul was ever as constant as his. Only he feared that, in following them, he would gratify a certain feebleness, and the masters whom he now wished to prefer were called Napoleon and Cæsar Borgia. On this occasion, too, he turned away from his task, shunning harsh affirmations. The publisher Fritsch consented, on the condition that he received pecuniary aid, to publish a second edition of the _Origin of Tragedy, The Dawn of Day,_ and _The Gay Science._ This had long been one of Nietzsche's desires: he wished to add prefaces to these old works, to touch them up, and perhaps to add to them. He undertook this new work and became absorbed in it. Instead of going to Corsica he returned to the Genoese coast, to Ruta, not far from Rapallo, above Portofino, which thrusts its wooded crest out into the sea. Again he found the walks and familiar places in which Zarathustra had spoken to him. How sad he had then been! He had just lost his two last friends, Lou Salomé and Paul Rée. Nevertheless he had continued his task and, indeed, created, at the moment of his profoundest sorrow, his bravest book. Friedrich Nietzsche let himself be stirred by these memories of the past.