te.
Throughout his Italian campaigns--as consul--as emperor--and down to the
last hour of the exile which terminated his life--Buonaparte suffered
himself to be annoyed by sarcasms and pamphlets as keenly and constantly
as if he had been a poetaster.

The haughtiness, for such it was considered, of his behaviour in the
society of the capital, was of a piece with what he had already
manifested in the camp. In the course of his first campaigns, his
officers, even of the highest rank, became sensible, by degrees, to a
total change of demeanour. An old acquaintance of the Toulon period,
joining the army, was about to throw himself into the general's arms
with the warmth of the former familiarity. Napoleon's cold eye checked
him; and he perceived in a moment how he had altered with his elevation.
He had always, on the other hand, affected much familiarity with the
common soldiery. He disdained not on occasion to share the ration or to
taste the flask of a sentinel; and the French private, often as
intelligent as those whom fortune has placed above him, used to address
the great general with even more frankness than his own captain.
Napoleon, in one of his Italian despatches, mentions to the Directory
the pleasure which he often derived from the conversation of the men:
"But yesterday," says he, "a common trooper addressed me as I was
riding, and told me he thought he could suggest the movement which ought
to be adopted. I listened to him, and heard him detail some operations
on which I had actually resolved but a little before." It has been
noticed (perhaps by over-nice speculators) as a part of the same
system, that Napoleon, on his return to Paris, continued to employ the
same tradespeople, however inferior in their several crafts, who had
served him in the days of his obscurity.[21]

If we may follow M. de Bourienne, Napoleon at this time laboured under
intense anxiety of mind. Conscious of the daring heights to which he had
ere now accustomed his ambitious imagination, he was fearful that others
had divined his secret, and was haunted with the perpetual dread that
some accident might unite Royalists and Republicans in the work of his
personal ruin.

The first public appearance of Buonaparte occurred (January 2, 1798)
when the treaty of Campo-Formio was to be formally presented to the
Directory. The great court of the Luxembourg was roofed over with flags;
an immense concourse, including all the members of the governme