sensibilite_ of some of his earlier
effusions, we feel here the icy breath of materialism. He regards an
ideal human society as a geometrical structure based on certain
well-defined postulates. All men ought to be able to satisfy certain
elementary needs of their nature; but all that is beyond is
questionable or harmful. The ideal legislator will curtail wealth so
as to restore the wealthy to their true nature--and so forth. Of any
generous outlook on the wider possibilities of human life there is
scarcely a trace. His essay is the apotheosis of social mediocrity. By
Procrustean methods he would have forced mankind back to the dull
levels of Sparta: the opalescent glow of Athenian life was beyond his
ken. But perhaps the most curious passage is that in which he preaches
against the sin and folly of ambition. He pictures Ambition as a
figure with pallid cheeks, wild eyes, hasty step, jerky movements and
sardonic smile, for whom crimes are a sport, while lies and calumnies
are merely arguments and figures of speech. Then, in words that recall
Juvenal's satire on Hannibal's career, he continues: "What is
Alexander doing when he rushes from Thebes into Persia and thence into
India? He is ever restless, he loses his wits, he believes himself
God. What is the end of Cromwell? He governs England. But is he not
tormented by all the daggers of the furies?"--The words ring false,
even for this period of Buonaparte's life; and one can readily
understand his keen wish in later years to burn every copy of these
youthful essays. But they have nearly all survived; and the diatribe
against ambition itself supplies the feather wherewith history may
wing her shaft at the towering flight of the imperial eagle.[15]

At midsummer he is transferred, as first lieutenant, to another
regiment which happened to be quartered at Valence; but his second
sojourn there is remarkable only for signs of increasing devotion to
the revolutionary cause. In the autumn of 1791 he is again in Corsica
on furlough, and remains there until the month of May following. He
finds the island rent by strifes which it would be tedious to
describe. Suffice it to say that the breach between Paoli and the
Buonapartes gradually widened owing to the dictator's suspicion of all
who favoured the French Revolution. The young officer certainly did
nothing to close the breach. Determined to secure his own election as
lieutenant-colonel in the new Corsican National Guard, he spen