rewards to the sum of 88,400 francs. Let the administration look to
this beforehand so as to raise up talent and have it bear good fruit.
"Complaints are made because we have no literature;[6261] it is the
fault of the minister of the interior. Napoleon personally and in the
height of a campaign interposes in theatrical matters. Whether far away
in Prussia or at home in France, he leads tragic authors by the hand,
Raynouard, Legouve, Luce de Lancival; he listens to the first reading of
the "Mort d'Henri IV." and the "Etats de Blois." He gives to Gardel, a
ballet-composer, "a fine theme in the Return of Ulysses." He explains to
authors how dramatic effect should, in their hands, become a political
lesson; for lack of anything better, and waiting for these to comprehend
it, he uses the theatre the same as a tribune for the reading to the
spectators of his bulletins of the grand army.

On the other hand, in the daily newspapers, he is his own advocate, the
most vehement, the haughtiest, the most powerful of polemics. For a long
time, in the "Moniteur," he himself dictates articles which are known by
his style. After Austerlitz, he has no time to do this, but he inspires
them all and they are prepared under his orders. In the "Moniteur" and
other gazettes, it is his voice which, directly or by his spokesmen,
reaches the public; it alone prevails and one may divine what it utters!
The official acclaim of every group or authority in the State again
swell the one great, constant, triumphant adulatory hymn which, with
its insistence, unanimity and violent sonorities, tends to bewilder all
minds, deaden consciences and pervert the judgment.

"Were it open to doubt," says a member of the tribunate,[6262] "whether
heaven or chance gives sovereigns on earth, would it not be evident for
us that we owe our Emperor to some divinity?"

Another of the choir then takes up the theme in a minor key and thus
sings the victory of Austerlitz:

"Europe, threatened by a new invasion of the barbarians, owes its safety
to the genius of another Charles Martel."

Similar cantatas follow, intoned in the senate and lower house by
Lacepede, Perignon and Garat, and then, in each diocese, by the bishops,
some of whom, in their pastoral letters, raise themselves up to the
technical considerations of military art, and, the better to praise the
Emperor, explain to their parishioners the admirable combinations of his
strategic genius.

And truly, his