These he would have had had things followed their usual course; it is the Revolution which has cleared the ground around him; without that the road would have been obstructed; competent candidates would have swarmed.

Reckon, if possible, how many men of talent who were destroyed, royalists, monarchists, feuillants, Girondists and even Jacobins.

They were the elite of the noblesse, of the clergy, of the bourgeoisie, of the youth and those of riper age.
Thus rid of their most formidable rivals the survivors pursue their way at top speed; the guillotine has wrought for them in advance; it has effected openings in their own ranks, made by bullets in every battle in the ranks of the army, and, in the civil hierarchy as in the military hierarchy, merit, if demonstrated by services, or not arrested by death, reaches the highest summit in very few years.
The prizes offered on these summits are splendid; no attraction is lacking.

The great trainer who displays them has omitted none of the seductions which excite and stimulate an ordinary mind.

He has associated with the positive values of power and wealth every value incident to imagination and opinion; hence his institution of decorations and the Legion of Honor.[3343] "They call it a toy,"[3344] said he, "but men are led by toys...
Frenchmen are not changed by ten years of revolution....