otte.--

This last attraction which, in these times of violent and premature
death, is of no little account. Napoleon opens out hereditary and
undefined prospects beyond the perspectives of life and of inferior
interests. Each of the titles conferred by him, that of prince, duke,
count, baron, and even that of chevalier, is transmissible in direct
descent, according to primogeniture from father to son, and sometimes
from uncle to nephew, under specified conditions which are very
acceptable, and of which the first is the institution of an inalienable
majority, inattackable, consisting of this or that income or real
property, of bank stock or state securities, from 3000 francs for common
chevaliers up to 200,000 francs for the dukes, that is to say, a certain
fortune in perpetuity due to the sovereign's liberality, or to the
prudence of the founder, and intended to support the dignity of the
title from male to male and from link to link throughout the future
chain of successive inheritors. Through this supreme reward, the subtle
tempter has a hold on the men who care not alone for themselves but for
their family: henceforth, the work as he does, eighteen hours a day,
stand fire, and say to themselves, while sinking at their desks or
facing cannon-ball that their pre-eminence survives them in their
posterity:

"In any event my son will succeed me and even become greater by my
death."

All the temptations which serve to overcome the natural lethargy of
human matter are simultaneously united and; with the exception of
personal conscience and the desire for personal independence, all other
internal springs are strained to the utmost. One unusual circumstance
gives to eager ambitions a further increase of energy, impulse and
enthusiasm.--All these successful or parvenu men are contemporaries:
all have started alike on the same line and from the same average or
low condition in life; each sees old comrades superior to himself on the
upper steps; he considers himself as good they are, suffers because he
is not on their level, and strives and takes risks so as to mount up to
them. But, however high he mounts, he still sees higher yet others who
were formerly his equals; consequently, no rank obtained by them seems
to him above his deserts, and no rank that he obtains suffices for his
pretensions.

"See that Massena," exclaimed Napoleon,[3350] a few days before
the battle of Wagram; "he has honors and fame enough, but he is n