ust as it exists before us, and its
true history. Claude Bernard one day remarked to me, "We shall know
physiology when we are able to follow step by step a molecule of carbon
or azote in the body of a dog, give its history, and describe its
passage from its entrance to its exit."]

[Footnote 1152: Thibaudeau, "Memoires sur le Consulat," 204. (Apropos of
the tribunate): "They consist of a dozen or fifteen metaphysicians who
ought to be flung into the water; they crawl all over me like vermin."]

[Footnote 1153: Madame de Remusat, I., 115: "He is really ignorant,
having read very little and always hastily."--Stendhal, "Memoires sur
Napoleon": "His education was very defective....He knew nothing of the
great principles discovered within the past one hundred years," and
just those which concern man or society. "For example, he had not read
Montesquieu as this writer ought to be read, that is to say, in a way to
accept or decidedly reject each of the thirty-one books of the 'Esprit
des lois.' He had not thus read Bayle's Dictionary nor the Essay on the
Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. This ignorance of the Emperor's was not
perceptible in conversation, and first, because he led in conversation,
and next because with Italian finesse no question put by him,
or careless supposition thrown out, ever betrayed that
ignorance."--Bourrienne. I., 19, 21: At Brienne, "unfortunately for us,
the monks to whom the education of youth was confided knew nothing, and
were too poor to pay good foreign teachers.... It is inconceivable
how any capable man ever graduated from this educational
institution."--Yung, I., 125 (Notes made by him on Bonaparte, when
he left the Military Academy): "Very fond of the abstract sciences,
indifferent to others, well grounded in mathematics and geography."]

[Footnote 1154: Roederer, III., 544 (March 6, 1809), 26, 563 (Jan. 23,
1811, and Nov. 12, 1813).]

[Footnote 1155: Mollien, I., 348 (a short time before the rupture of the
peace of Amiens), III., 16: "It was at the end of January, 1809, that he
wanted a full report of the financial situation on the 31st of December,
1808 .... This report was to be ready in two days."--III., 34: "A
complete balance sheet of the public treasury for the first six months
of 1812 was under Napoleon's eyes at Witebsk, the 11th of August, eleven
days after the close of these first six months. What is truly wonderful
is, that amidst so many different occupations and preoccupat