I am always living two years in advance."[1173] His response came with "incredible vivacity," as if a sudden inspiration, that of a soul stirred in its innermost fiber .-- Here as well, the power, the speed, fertility, play, and abundance of his thought seem unlimited.

What he has accomplished is astonishing, but what he has undertaken is more so; and whatever he may have undertaken is far surpassed by what he has imagined.

However vigorous his practical faculty, his poetical faculty is stronger; it is even too vigorous for a statesman; its grandeur is exaggerated into enormity, and its enormity degenerates into madness.

In Italy, after the 18th of Fructidor, he said to Bourrienne: "Europe is a molehill; never have there been great empires and great revolutions, except in the Orient, with its 600,000,000 inhabitants."[1174] The following year at Saint-Jean d'Acre, on the eve of the last assault, he added "If I succeed I shall find in the town the pasha's treasure and arms for 300,000 men.

I stir up and arm all Syria....