it of giving him alternate gloves; thus making one pair serve as two.

Bonaparte had two great passions which Napoleon inherited--for war and
architectural monuments to his fame.

Gay, almost jolly in camp, he was dreamy and sombre in repose. To escape
this gloom he had recourse to the electricity of art, and saw visions
of those gigantic monumental works of which he undertook many, and
completed some. He realized that such works are part of the life of
peoples; they are history written in capitals, landmarks of the ages,
left standing long after generations are swept away. He knew that Rome
lives in her ruins, that Greece speaks by her statues, that Egypt,
splendid and mysterious spectre, appeared through her monuments on the
threshold of civilized existence.

What he loved above everything, what he hugged in preference to all
else, was renown, heroic uproar; hence his need of war, his thirst for
glory. He often said:

"A great reputation is a great noise; the louder it is, the further it
is heard. Laws, institutions, monuments, nations, all fall; but sound
remains and resounds through other generations. Babylon and Alexandria
are fallen; Semiramis and Alexander stand erect, greater perhaps through
the echo of their renown, waxing and multiplying through the ages, than
they were in their lifetimes." Then he added, connecting these ideas
with himself: "My power depends on my fame and on the battles I win.
Conquest has made me what I am, and conquest alone can sustain me. A new
born government must dazzle, must amaze. The moment it no longer flames,
it dies out; once it ceases to grow, it falls."

He was long a Corsican, impatient under the conquest of his country;
but after the 13th Vendemiaire he became a true Frenchman, and ended by
loving France with true passion. His dream was to see her great, happy,
powerful, at the head of the nations in glory and in art. It is true
that, in making France great, he became great with her, and attached
his name indissolubly to her grandeur. To him, living eternally in this
thought, actuality disappeared in the future; wherever the hurricane
of war may have swept him, France, above all things else, above all
nations, filled his thoughts. "What will my Athenians think?" said
Alexander, after Issus and Arbela. "I hope the French will be content
with me," said Bonaparte, after Rivoli and the Pyramids.

Before battle, this modern Alexander gave little thought to what he
should do