offices
were not only open to the attainment, but were generally appropriated to
the claims of men who rose from the ranks; and the general
dissemination, at that period, of an unbounded desire for violence and
rapine: And it will probably be allowed, that the spirit of the French
nation, at the time when he came to the head of it, was truly and almost
exclusively military. He was himself a great soldier; he rose to the
supreme government of a great military people, and he availed himself of
their habits and principles to gratify his ambition, and extend his
fame; but he ought not to be charged with having created the spirit,
which in fact created him; a spirit so powerful, and so extensively
diffused, that in comparison with it, even his efforts might be said to
be "dashing with his oar to hasten the cataract;" to be "waving with his
fan to give speed to the wind." The favourite saying of Napoleon, "Every
Frenchman is a soldier, and as such, at the disposal of the Emperor,"
expresses a principle which was not merely enforced by arbitrary power,
but engrafted on the character and habits of the French people.

The French are certainly admirably fitted for becoming soldiers: they
have a restless activity, which surmounts difficulties, a buoyancy and
elasticity of disposition, which rises superior to hardships, and
calamities, and privations, not with patient fortitude, but with ease
and cheerfulness. A Frenchman does not regard war, merely as the serious
struggle in which his patriotism and valour are to be tried; he loves it
for its own sake, for the interest and agitation it gives to his mind;
it is his "game,--his gain,--his glory,--his delight." Other nations of
Europe have become military, in consequence of threats or injuries, of
the dread of hostile invasion, of the presence of foreign armies, or the
galling influence of foreign power; but if the origin of the French
military spirit may be traced to similar sources, it must at least be
allowed, that the effect has been out of all proportion to the cause.

It is probable, however, that the effervescence of military ideas and
feelings, which arose out of the revolution, would have gradually
subsided, had it not been for the fostering influence of the imperial
government. The turbulent and irregular energies of a great people let
loose from former bonds, received a fixed direction, and were devoted to
views of military ascendancy and national aggrandizement under Nap