(dramatic) character is that of the most sagacious critic. "The
'Mahomet' of Voltaire is neither a prophet nor an Arab, only an
impostor graduated out of the École Polytechnique." - " Madame de
Genlis tries to define virtue as if she were the discoverer of it." -
(On Madame de Staël): "This woman teaches people to think who never
took to it, or have forgotten how." - (On Chateaubriand, one of whose
relations had just been shot) : "He will write a few pathetic pages
and read them aloud in the faubourg Saint-Germain; pretty women will
shed tears, and that will console him." - (On Abbé Delille) : "He is
wit in its dotage." - (On Pasquier and Molé): "I make the most of one,
and made the other." - Madame de Rémusat, II., 389, 391, 394, 399,
402; III., 67.

[65] Bourrienne, II., 281, 342: "It pained me to write official
statements under his dictation, of which each was an imposture." He
always answered: "My dear sir, you are a simpleton - you understand
nothing!" - Madame de Rémusat, II., 205, 209.

[66] See especially the campaign bulletins for 1807, so insulting to
the king and queen of Prussia, but, owing to that fact, so well
calculated to excite the contemptuous laughter and jeers of the
soldiers.

[67] In "La Correspondance de Napoleon," published in thirty-two
volumes, the letters are arranged under dates. - In his
'"Correspondance avec Eugène, vice-roi d'Italie," they are arranged
under chapters; also with Joseph, King of Naples and afterwards King
of Spain. It is easy to select other chapters not less instructive:
one on foreign affairs (letters to M. de Champagny, M de Talleyrand,
and M. de Bassano); another on the finances (letters to M. Gaudin and