But he forgets, or knows not, that in the age wherein we live, his actions will have to traverse the great streams of human morality, set free by three centuries of literature and by the French Revolution; and that in this medium, his actions will wear their true aspect, and appear what they really are--hideous.
His partisans--he has some--complacently compare him with his uncle, the first Bonaparte.

They say: "The one accomplished the 18th Brumaire, the other the 2nd of December: they are two ambitious men." The first Bonaparte aimed to reconstruct the Empire of the West, to make Europe his vassal, to dominate the continent by his power, and to dazzle it by his grandeur; to take an arm-chair himself, and give footstools to the kings; to cause history to say: "Nimrod, Cyrus, Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon;" to be a master of the world.

And so he was.

It was for that that he accomplished the 18th Brumaire.

This fellow would fain have horses and women, be called _Monseigneur_, and live luxuriously.