independent judge, who, at the beginning of the consular government,
sees Bonaparte daily at the meetings of the Council of State, and who
notes down every evening the impressions of the day, is carried away
with admiration:[44]

"Punctual at every sitting, prolonging the session five or six hours,
discussing before and afterwards the subjects brought forward, always
returning to two questions, 'Can that be justified?[45]' 'Is that
useful?' examining each question in itself, in these two respects,
after having subjected it to a most exact and sharp analysis; next,
consulting the best authorities, the pasts, experience, and obtaining
information about bygone jurisprudence, the laws of Louis XIV. and of
Frederick the Great. . . . Never did the council adjourn without
its members knowing more than the day before; if not through knowledge
derived from him, at least through the researches he obliged them to
make. Never did the members of the Senate and the Legislative Corps,
or of the tribunals, pay their respects to him without being rewarded
for their homage by valuable instructions. He cannot be surrounded by
public men without being the statesman, all forming for him a council
of state."

"What characterizes him above them all," is not alone the penetration
and universality of his comprehension, but likewise and especially
"the force, flexibility, and constancy of his attention. He can work
eighteen hours at a stretch, on one or on several subjects. I never
saw him tired. I never found his mind lacking in inspiration, even
when weary in body, nor when violently exercised, nor when angry. I
never saw him diverted from one matter by another, turning from that
under discussion to one he had just finished or was about to take up.
The news, good or bad, he received from Egypt, did not divert his mind