rime one commits, ascribing to it an incomprehensible supernatural
significance--that ideal, destined to guide this man and his associates,
had scope for its development in Africa. Whatever he does succeeds. The
plague does not touch him. The cruelty of murdering prisoners is not
imputed to him as a fault. His childishly rash, uncalled-for, and
ignoble departure from Africa, leaving his comrades in distress, is
set down to his credit, and again the enemy's fleet twice lets him slip
past. When, intoxicated by the crimes he has committed so successfully,
he reaches Paris, the dissolution of the republican government, which a
year earlier might have ruined him, has reached its extreme limit, and
his presence there now as a newcomer free from party entanglements can
only serve to exalt him--and though he himself has no plan, he is quite
ready for his new role.

He had no plan, he was afraid of everything, but the parties snatched at
him and demanded his participation.

He alone--with his ideal of glory and grandeur developed in Italy and
Egypt, his insane self-adulation, his boldness in crime and frankness in
lying--he alone could justify what had to be done.

He is needed for the place that awaits him, and so almost apart from
his will and despite his indecision, his lack of a plan, and all his
mistakes, he is drawn into a conspiracy that aims at seizing power and
the conspiracy is crowned with success.

He is pushed into a meeting of the legislature. In alarm he wishes to
flee, considering himself lost. He pretends to fall into a swoon and
says senseless things that should have ruined him. But the once proud
and shrewd rulers of France, feeling that their part is played out, are
even more bewildered than he, and do not say the words they should have
said to destroy him and retain their power.

Chance, millions of chances, give him power, and all men as if by
agreement co-operate to confirm that power. Chance forms the characters
of the rulers of France, who submit to him; chance forms the character
of Paul I of Russia who recognizes his government; chance contrives
a plot against him which not only fails to harm him but confirms his
power. Chance puts the Duc d'Enghien in his hands and unexpectedly
causes him to kill him--thereby convincing the mob more forcibly than
in any other way that he had the right, since he had the might.
Chance contrives that though he directs all his efforts to prepare an
expedition against