[80] "Mémoires et Mémorial." "It was essential that Paris should
become the unique capital, not to be compared with other capitals.
The masterpieces of science and of art, the museums, all that had
illustrated past centuries, were to be collected there. Napoleon
regretted that he could not transport St. Peter's to Paris; the
meanness of Notre Dame dissatisfied him."

[81] Villemain, "Souvenir contemporaines," I., 175. Napoleon's
statement to M. de Narbonne early in March, 1812, and repeated by him
to Villemain an hour afterwards. The wording is at second hand and
merely a very good imitation, while the ideas are substantially
Napoleon's. Cf. his fantasies about Italy and the Mediterranean,
equally exaggerated ("Correspondence," XXX., 548), and an admirable
improvisation on Spain and the colonies at Bayonne. - De Pradt.
"Mémoires sur les revolutions d'Espagne," p.130: "Therefore Napoleon
talked, or rather poetised; he Ossianized for a long time . . .
like a man full of a sentiment which oppressed him, in an animated,
picturesque style, and with the impetuosity, imagery, and originality
which were familiar to him, . . . on the vast throne of Mexico and
Peru, on the greatness of the sovereigns who should possess them . .
. . and on the results which these great foundations would have on
the universe. I had often heard him, but under no circumstances had I
ever heard him develop such a wealth and compass of imagination.
Whether it was the richness of his subject, or whether his faculties
had become excited by the scene he conjured up, and all the chords of
the instrument vibrated at once, he was sublime."

[82] Roederer, III., 541 (February 2, 1809): "I love power. But I
love it as an artist. . . . I love it as a musician loves his