That is the incentive of Frenchmen."-- His system is based on this.

The most competent witnesses, and those who were most familiar with him certify to his fixed idea on this point.
"His opinions on men," writes M.de Metternich,[1245] "centered on one idea, which, unfortunately for him, had acquired in his mind the force of an axiom; he was persuaded that no man who was induced to appear on the public stage, or who was merely engaged in the active pursuits of life, governed himself, or was governed, otherwise than by his interest." According to him, Man is held through his egoistic passions, fear, cupidity, sensuality, self-esteem, and emulation; these are the mainsprings when he is not under excitement, when he reasons.

Moreover, it is not difficult to turn the brain of man; for he is imaginative, credulous, and subject to being carried away; stimulate his pride or vanity, provide him with an extreme and false opinion of himself and of his fellow-men, and you can start him off head downward wherever you please.[1246]--None of these motives is entitled to much respect, and beings thus fashioned form the natural material for an absolute government, the mass of clay awaiting the potter's hand to shape it.

If parts of this mass are obdurate, the potter has only to crush and pound them and mix them thoroughly.
Such is the final conception on which Napoleon has anchored himself, and into which he sinks deeper and deeper, no matter how directly and violently he may be contradicted by palpable facts.

Nothing will dislodge him; neither the stubborn energy of the English, nor the inflexible gentleness of the Pope, nor the declared insurrection of the Spaniards, nor the mute insurrection of the Germans, nor the resistance of Catholic consciences, nor the gradual disaffection of the French; the reason is, that his conception is imposed on him by his character;[1247] he sees man as he needs to see him.
III.