CHAPTER I.RECOVERY OF SOCIAL ORDER.
I.Rule as the mass want to be ruled.
How Napoleon comprehends the sovereignty of the people .-- His maxim on the will of the majority and on the office of government .-- Two groups of prominent and obvious desires in 1799.
However clear and energetic his artistic convictions may be, his mind is absorbed by the preoccupations of the ruler: It is not enough for him that his edifice should be monumental, symmetrical, and beautiful.

As he lives in it and derives the greatest benefit from it, he wants first of all that it should be fit to live in, habitable for Frenchmen of the year 1800.

Consequently, he takes into account the habits and dispositions of his tenants, the pressing and permanent wants.

But these needs must not be theoretic and vague, but verified and defined; for he is as accurate as he is shrewd, and deals only with positive facts.
"My political system," says he to the Council of State,[3101] "is to rule men as the mass want to be ruled...

By constituting myself a Catholic I put an end to the war in La Vendee; by turning into a Moslem I established myself in Egypt: by turning ultramontane[3102] I gained over the priests in Italy.