pillage so as to become rich, like Massena, and conquer so as to
become powerful, like Bonaparte. - All this is understood between the
general and his army from the very first,[35] and, after one year's
experience, the understanding is perfect. One moral is derived from
their common acts, vague in the army, precise in the general; what the
army only half sees, he sees clearly; if he urges his comrades on, it
is because they follow their own inclination. He simply has a start on
them, and is quicker to make up his mind that the world is a grand
banquet, free to the first-comer, but at which, to be well served, one
must have long arms, be the first to get helped, and let the rest take
what is left.

So natural does this seem to him, he says so openly and to men who are
not his intimates; to Miot, a diplomat, and to Melzi a foreigner:

"Do you suppose, says he to them,[36] after the preliminaries of
Leoben, "that to make great men out of Directory lawyers, the Carnots'
and the Barras, I triumph in Italy? Do you suppose also that it is for
the establishment of a republic? What an idea! A republic of thirty
million men! With our customs, our vices, how is that possible? It is
a delusion which the French are infatuated with and which will vanish
along with so many others. What they want is glory, the gratification
of vanity - they know nothing about liberty. Look at the army! Our
successes just obtained, our triumphs have already brought out the
true character of the French soldier. I am all for him. Let the
Directory deprive me of the command and it will see if it is master.
The nation needs a chief, one who is famous though his exploits, and
not theories of government, phrases and speeches by ideologists, which
Frenchmen do not comprehend. . . . As to your country, Monsieur de
Melzi, it has still fewer elements of republicanism than France, and