"I am always at work," says he to Roederer.[48] "I meditate a great
deal. If I seem always equal to the occasion, ready to face what
comes, it is because I have thought the matter over a long time before
undertaking it. I have anticipated whatever might happen. It is no
spirit which suddenly reveals to me what I ought to do or say in any
unlooked-for circumstance, but my own reflection, my own meditation.
. . . I work all the time, at dinner, in the theatre. I wake up at
night in order to resume my work. I got up last night at two o'clock.
I stretched myself on my couch before the fire to examine the army
reports sent to me by the Minister of War. I found twenty mistakes in
them, and made notes which I have this morning sent to the minister,
who is now engaged with his clerks in rectifying them." -

His associates weaken and sink under the burden imposed on them and
which he supports without feeling the weight. When Consul,[49] "he
sometimes presides at special meetings of the section of the interior
from ten o'clock in the evening until five o'clock in the morning. .
. . Often, at Saint-Cloud, he keeps the counselors of state from
nine o'clock in the morning until five in the evening, with fifteen
minutes' intermission, and seems no more fatigued at the close of the
session than when it began." During the night sessions "many of the
members succumb through weariness, while the Minister of War falls
asleep"; he gives them a shake and wakes them up, "Come, come,
citizens, let us bestir ourselves, it is only two o'clock and we must
earn the money the French people pay us." Consul or Emperor,[50] "he
demands of each minister an account of the smallest details: It is not
rare to see them leaving the council room overcome with fatigue, due
to the long interrogatories to which he has subjected them; he appears
not to have noticed, and talks about the day's work simply as a
relaxation which has scarcely given his mind exercise." And what is