them go,
retains only the shell, an envelope. With respect to these his curiosity
is "insatiable."[1157] In each ministerial department he knows more than
the ministers, and in each bureau he knows as much as the clerks. "On
his table[1158] lie reports of the positions of his forces on land and
on water. He has furnished the plans of these, and fresh ones are issued
every month"; such is the daily reading he likes best.

"I have my reports on positions always at hand; my memory for an
Alexandrine is not good, but I never forget a syllable of my reports on
positions. I shall find them in my room this evening, and I shall not go
to bed until I have read them."

He always knows "his position" on land and at sea better than is known
in the War and Navy departments; better even than his staff-officers the
number, size, and qualities of his ships in or out of port, the present
and future state of vessels under construction, the composition and
strength of their crews, the formation, organization, staff of officers,
material, stations, and enlistments, past and to come, of each army
corps and of each regiment. It is the same in the financial and
diplomatic services, in every branch of the administration, laic or
ecclesiastical, in the physical order and in the moral order. His
topographical memory and his geographical conception of countries,
places, ground, and obstacles culminate in an inward vision which he
evokes at will, and which, years afterwards, revives as fresh as on the
first day. His calculation of distances, marches, and maneuvers is so
rigid a mathematical operation that, frequently, at a distance of two
or four hundred leagues,[1159] his military foresight, calculated two
or four months ahead, turns out correct, almost on the day named, and
precisely on the spot designated.[1160] Add to this one other faculty,
and the rarest of all. For, if things turn out as he foresaw they would,
it is because, as with great chess-players, he has accurately measured
not alone the mechanical moves of the pieces, but the character and
talent of his adversary, "sounded his draft of water," and divined his
probable mistakes. He has added the calculation of physical quantities
and probabilities to the calculation of moral quantities and
probabilities, thus showing himself as great a psychologist as he is an
accomplished strategist. In fact, no one has surpassed him in the art
of judging the condition and motives of an individual