Tone of command and of conversation.

We at last confront his dominant passion, the inward abyss into which
instinct, education, reflection, and theory have plunged him, and
which is to engulf the proud edifice of his fortune - I mean, his
ambition. It is the prime motor of his soul and the permanent
substance of his will, so profound that he no longer distinguishes
between it and himself, and of which he is sometimes unconscious.

"I," said he to Roederer,[48] "I have no ambition," and then,
recollecting himself, he adds, with his ordinary lucidity, "or, if I
have any, it is so natural to me, so innate, so intimately associated
with my existence, that it is like the blood which flows in my veins
and the atmosphere I breathe." -

Still more profoundly, he likens it to that unconscious, savage, and
irresistible emotion which vibrates the soul from one end to the
other, to this universal thrill moving all living beings, animal or
moral, to those keen and terrible tremors which we call the passion of
love.

"I have but one passion,[49] one mistress, and that is France. I
sleep with her. She has never been false to me. She lavishes her
blood and treasures on me. If I need 500,000 men, she gives them to
me."

Let no one come between him and her. Let Joseph, in relation to the
coronation, abstain from claiming his place, even secondary and
prospective, in the new empire; let him not put forth his fraternal
rights.[50] "It is to wound me in the most tender spot." This he does,