The organization of the French nation is still only sketched out....The power of the government, with the full latitude I give to it, should be considered as really representing the nation." In this government, "the legislative power, without rank in the republic, deaf and blind to all around it, would not be ambitious and would no longer inundate us with a thousand chance laws, worthless on account of their absurdity." It is evident that he describes in anticipation his future senate and legislative corps .-- Repeatedly, the following year, and during the expedition into Egypt, he presents the Romans as an example to his soldiers, and views himself as a successor to Scipio and Caesar .-- (Proclamation of June 22, 1798.): "Be as tolerant to the ceremonies enjoined by the Koran as you are for the religion of Moses and Jesus.

The Roman legions protected all religions."-- (Proclamation of May 10, 1798.) "The Roman legions that you have often imitated but not yet equaled fought Carthage in turn on this wall and in the vicinity of Zama."-- Carthage at this time is England: his hatred of this community of merchants which destroys his fleet at Aboukir, which forces him to raise the siege of Saint-Jean d'Acre, which holds on to Malta, which robs him of his substance, his patrimony, his Mediterranean, is that of a Roman consul against Carthage; it leads him to conquer all western Europe against her and to "resuscitate the empire of the Occident." (Note to Otto, his ambassador at London, Oct..

23, 1802.)--Emperor of the French, king of Italy, master of Rome, suzerain of the Pope, protector of the confederation of the Rhine, he succeeds the German emperors, the titularies of the Holy Roman Empire which has just ended in 1806; he is accordingly the heir of Charlemagne and, through Charlemagne, the heir of the ancient Caesars .-- In fact, he reproduces the work of the ancient Caesars by analogies of imagination, situation and character, but in a different Europe, and where this posthumous reproduction can be only an anachronism.] [Footnote 2340: "Correspondance," note for M.Cretet, minister of the interior, April 12, 1808.] [Footnote 2341: Metternich, "Memoires," I., 107 (Conversations with Napoleon,, 1810): "I was surprised to find that this man, so wonderfully endowed, had such completely false ideas concerning England, its vital forces and intellectual progress.

He would not admit any ideas contrary to his own, and sought to explain these by prejudices which he condemned."-- Cf.

Forsyth, "History of the Captivity of Napoleon at Saint-Helena," III., 306, (False calculations of Napoleon at Saint-Helena based on his ignorance of the English parliamentary system,) and Stanislas Girardin, III., 296, (Words of the First Consul, Floreal 24, year XI, quoted above.)] [Footnote 2342: Cf., amongst other documents, his letter to Jerome, King of Westphalia, October 15, 1807, and the constitution he gives to that kingdom on that date, and especially titles 4 to 12: "The welfare of your people concerns me, not only through the influence it may exercise on your fame and my own, but likewise from the point of view of the general European system....