his uncle, or at a physiognomic expression, a sign of approbation, a
shrug of the shoulders, he has divined that the ordinary march of
society is not that of peace but of war; he sees by what ruses one
maintains one's-self, by what acts of violence one makes ones way, by
what sort of help one mounts upward. Left to himself the rest of the
day, to the nurse Ilaria, or to Saveria the housekeeper, or to the
common people amongst whom he strays at will, he listens to the
conversation of sailors or of shepherds assembled on the public
square, and their simple exclamations, their frank admiration of well-
planned ambuscades and lucky surprises, impress more profoundly on
him, often repeated with so much energy, the lessons which he has
already learned at home. These are the lessons taught by things. At
this tender age they sink deep, especially when the disposition is
favorable, and in this case the heart sanctions them beforehand,
because education finds its confederate in instinct. Accordingly, at
the outbreak of the Revolution, on revisiting Corsica, he takes life
at once as he finds it there, a combat with any sort of weapon, and,
on this small arena, he acts unscrupulously, going farther than
anybody.[31] If he respects justice and law, it is only in words, and
even here ironically; in his eyes, law is a term of the code, justice
a book term, while might makes right.

A second blow of the coining-press gives another impression of the
same stamp on this character already so decided, while French anarchy
forces maxims into the mind of the young man, already traced in the
child's mind by Corsican anarchy; the lessons of things provided by a
society going to pieces are the same as those of a society which is
not yet formed. - His sharp eyes, at a very early period, see through
the flourish of theory and the parade of phrases; they detect the real
foundation of the Revolution, namely, the sovereignty of unbridled