ent than in the Occident,
namely military honor and administrative talent; he would have dealt
in these two products, as he did in Egypt, at the right time and in the
right place, at the highest price, without our conscientious scruples
and without our European refinements of probity and humanity. No
imagination can picture what he would have become there: certainly some
pasha, like Djezzar in Syria, or a khedive like Mahomet-Ali, afterwards
at Cairo; he already saw himself in the light of a conqueror, like
Ghengis-Khan,[3318] a founder like Alexander or Baber, a prophet like
Mahomet; as he himself declares, "one could work only on a grand scale
in the Orient," and there he would have worked on a grand scale; Europe,
perhaps, would have gained by it, and especially France.

III. Ambition and Selection.

The Revolution provides an internal outlet and an unlimited
career.--Effect of this.--Exigencies and pretensions of the
modern man.--Theoretical rule of selection among rivals.
--Popular suffrage raised to be lord and judge.--Consequence
of its verdict.--Unworthiness of its choice.

But the Revolution arrived and the ambitions which, under the ancient
Regime, found a field abroad or cooled down at home, arose on the natal
soil and suddenly expanded beyond all calculation. After 1789, France
resembles a hive in a state of excitement; in a few hours, in the brief
interval of an August morning, each insect puts forth two huge wings,
soars aloft and "all whirl together pell-mell;" many fall to the ground
half cut to pieces and begin to crawl upward as before; others, with
more strength or with better luck, ascend and glitter on the highways
of the atmosphere.--Every great highway and every other road is open to
everybody through the decrees of the Constituent-Assembly, not only for
the future, but even immediately. The sudden dismissal of the entire
ruling staff, executive, or consultative, political, administrative,
provincial, municipal, ecclesiastical, educational, military, judicial
and financial, summon to take office all who covet it and who have a
good opinion of themselves. All previously existing conditions, birth,
fortune, education, old family and all apprenticeships, customs and ways
which retard and limit advancement, are abolished: There are no
longer any guarantees or sponsors; all Frenchmen are eligible to all
employments; all grades of the legal and social hierarchy are confe