isbeliever in many things; but the
impressions of my childhood and the inspirations of my early youth have
flung me back into uncertainty."

Nevertheless he would never hear of materialism; he cared little what
the dogma was, provided that dogma recognized a Creator. One beautiful
evening in Messidor, on board his vessel, as it glided along between the
twofold azure of the sky and sea, certain mathematicians declared there
was no God, only animated matter. Bonaparte looked at the celestial
arch, a hundred times more brilliant between Malta and Alexandria than
it is in Europe, and, at a moment when they thought him unconscious of
the conversation, he exclaimed, pointing to the stars: "You may say what
you please, but it was a God who made all that."

Bonaparte, though very exact in paying his private debts, was just the
reverse about public expenses. He was firmly convinced that in all past
transactions between ministers and purveyors or contractors, that if the
minister who had made the contract was not a dupe, the State at any rate
was robbed; for this reason he delayed the period of payment as long as
possible; there were literally no evasions, no difficulties he would not
make, no bad reasons he would not give. It was a fixed idea with him, an
immutable principle, that every contractor was a cheat.

One day a man who had made a bid that was accepted was presented to him.

"What is your name?" he asked, with his accustomed brusqueness.

"Vollant, citizen First Consul."

"Good name for a contractor."

"I spell it with two l's, citizen."

"To rob the better, sir," retorted Bonaparte, turning his back on him.

Bonaparte seldom changed his decisions, even when he saw they were
unjust. No one ever heard him say: "I was mistaken." On the contrary,
his favorite saying was: "I always believe the worst"--a saying more
worthy of Simon than Augustus.

But with all this, one felt that there was more of a desire in
Bonaparte's mind to seem to despise men than actual contempt for them.
He was neither malignant nor vindictive. Sometimes, it is true, he
relied too much upon necessity, that iron-tipped goddess; but for
the rest, take him away from the field of politics and he was kind,
sympathetic, accessible to pity, fond of children (great proof of a kind
and pitying heart), full of indulgence for human weakness in private
life, and sometimes of a good-humored heartiness, like that of Henri IV.
playing with his children i