ime; the Confederation of the Rhine, which he has made and which
he directs; Westphalia and Holland, where his brothers are only his
lieutenants; Prussia, which he has subdued and mutilated and which he
oppresses, and the strongholds of which he still retains; and, add
a last mental tableau, that which represents the northern seas, the
Atlantic and the Mediterranean, all the fleets of the continent at sea
and in port from Dantzic to Flessingen and Bayonne, from Cadiz to Toulon
and Gaeta, from Tarentum to Venice, Corfu, and Constantinople.[1169]--On
the psychological and moral atlas, besides a primitive gap which he will
never fill up, because this is a characteristic trait, there are some
estimates which are wrong, especially with regard to the Pope and to
Catholic conscience. In like manner he rates the energy of national
sentiment in Spain and Germany too low. He rates too high his own
prestige in France and in the countries annexed to her, the balance of
confidence and zeal on which he may rely. But these errors are rather
the product of his will than of his intelligence, he recognizes them at
intervals; if he has illusions it is because he fabricates them; left
to himself his good sense would rest infallible, it is only his passions
which blurred the lucidity of his intellect.--As to the other two
atlases, the topographical and the military, they are as complete and as
exact as ever; No matter how much the realities they contain will swell
and daily become ever more complex, they continue to correspond to it in
their fullness and precision, trait for trait.

V. His Imagination and its Excesses.

His constructive imagination.--His projects and dreams.
--Manifestation of the master faculty and its excesses.

But this multitude of information and observations form only the
smallest portion of the mental population swarming in this immense
brain; for, on his idea of the real, germinate and swarm his concepts of
the possible; without these concepts there would be no way to handle and
transform things, and that he did handle and transform them we all know.
Before acting, he has decided on his plan, and if this plan is adopted,
it is one among several others,[1170] after examining, comparing,
and giving it the preference; he has accordingly thought over all the
others. Behind each combination adopted by him we detect those he has
rejected; there are dozens of them behind each of his decisions, each
maneuv