He was in one of those humours, frequent at this time of dawning splendour, when confidence in his own genius betrayed him into quite piquant indiscretions.

After referring to the Directory, he turned abruptly to Melzi, a Lombard nobleman: "As for your country, Monsieur de Melzi, it possesses still fewer elements of republicanism than France, and can be managed more easily than any other.

You know better than anyone that we shall do what we like with Italy.

But the time has not yet come.

We must give way to the fever of the moment.