Edwin L. Sabin - "Pluck on the Long Trail"

James Elroy Flecker - "Forty Two Poems"

Joseph Conrad - "Notes on My Books"

W. D. Howells - "A Traveler from Altruria: Romance"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5

H >> Hippolyte A. Taine >> The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5




Referring to his early years under the paternal roof at Corsica, he
depicts himself as a little mischievous savage, rebelling against
every sort of restraint, and without any conscience.[27] " I respected
nothing and feared nobody; I beat one and scratched another; I made
everybody afraid of me. I beat my brother Joseph; I bit him and
complained of him almost before he knew what he was about." A clever
trick, and one which he was not slow to repeat. His talent for
improvising useful falsehoods is innate; later on, at maturity, he is
proud of this ; he makes it the index and measure of "political
superiority," and "delights in calling to mind one of his uncles who,
in his infancy, prognosticated to him that he would govern the world
because he was fond of lying."[28]

Remark this observation of the uncles - it sums up the experiences of
a man of his time and of his country; it is what social life in
Corsica inculcated; morals and manners there adapted themselves to
each other through an unfailing connection. The moral law, indeed, is
such because similar customs prevail in all countries and at all times
where the police is powerless, where justice cannot be obtained, where
public interests are in the hands of whoever can lay hold of them,
where private warfare is pitiless and not repressed, where every man
goes armed, where every sort of weapon is fair, and where
dissimulation, fraud, and trickery, as well as gun or poniard, are
allowed, which was the case in Corsica in the eighteenth century, as
in Italy in the fifteenth century. - Hence the early impressions of
Bonaparte similar to those of the Borgias and of Macchiavelli; hence,
in his case, that first stratum of half-thought which, later on,
serves as the basis of complete thought; hence, the whole foundation
of his future mental edifice and of the conceptions he subsequently
entertains of human society. Afterwards, on leaving the French
schools and every time he returns to them and spends any time in them,
the same impressions, often renewed, intensify in his mind the same
final conclusion. In this country, report the French
commissioners,[29] "the people have no idea of principle in the
abstract," nor of social interest or justice. "Justice does not
exist; one hundred and thirty assassinations have occurred in ten
years. . . . The institution of juries has deprived the country of all
the means for punishing crime; never do the strongest proofs, the
clearest evidence, lead a jury composed of men of the same party, or
of the same family as the accused, to convict him; and, if the accused
is of the opposite party, the juries likewise acquit him, so as not to
incur the risk of revenge, slow perhaps but always sure." - "Public
spirit is unknown." There is no social body, except any number of
small parties hostile to each other. . . . One is not a Corsican
without belonging to some family, and consequently attached to some
party; he who would serve none, would be detested by all. . . . All
the leaders have the same end in view, that of getting money no matter
by what means, and their first care is to surround themselves with
creatures entirely devoted to them and to whom they give all the
offices. . . . The elections are held under arms, and all with
violence. . . . The victorious party uses its authority to avenge
itself on their opponents, and multiplies vexations and outrages. . .
. The leaders form aristocratic leagues with each other. . . . and
mutually tolerate abuses. They impose no assessment or collection (of
taxes) to curry favor with electors through party spirit and
relationships. . . . Customs-duties serve simply to compensate friends
and relatives. . . . Salaries never reach those for whom they are
intended. The rural districts are uninhabitable for lack of security.
The peasants carry guns even when at the plow. One cannot take a step
without an escort; a detachment of five or six men is often sent to
carry a letter from one post-office to another."

Interpret this general statement by the thousands of facts of which it
is the summary; imagine these little daily occurrences narrated with
all their material accompaniments, and with sympathetic or angry
comments by interested neighbors, and we have the moral lessons taught
to young Bonaparte.[30] At table, the child has listened to the
conversation of his elders, and at a word uttered, for instance, by
his uncle, or at a physiognomic expression, a sign of approbation, a
shrug of the shoulders, he has divined that the ordinary march of
society is not that of peace but of war; he sees by what ruses one
maintains one's-self, by what acts of violence one makes ones way, by
what sort of help one mounts upward. Left to himself the rest of the
day, to the nurse Ilaria, or to Saveria the housekeeper, or to the
common people amongst whom he strays at will, he listens to the
conversation of sailors or of shepherds assembled on the public
square, and their simple exclamations, their frank admiration of well-
planned ambuscades and lucky surprises, impress more profoundly on
him, often repeated with so much energy, the lessons which he has
already learned at home. These are the lessons taught by things. At
this tender age they sink deep, especially when the disposition is
favorable, and in this case the heart sanctions them beforehand,
because education finds its confederate in instinct. Accordingly, at
the outbreak of the Revolution, on revisiting Corsica, he takes life
at once as he finds it there, a combat with any sort of weapon, and,
on this small arena, he acts unscrupulously, going farther than
anybody.[31] If he respects justice and law, it is only in words, and
even here ironically; in his eyes, law is a term of the code, justice
a book term, while might makes right.

A second blow of the coining-press gives another impression of the
same stamp on this character already so decided, while French anarchy
forces maxims into the mind of the young man, already traced in the
child's mind by Corsican anarchy; the lessons of things provided by a
society going to pieces are the same as those of a society which is
not yet formed. - His sharp eyes, at a very early period, see through
the flourish of theory and the parade of phrases; they detect the real
foundation of the Revolution, namely, the sovereignty of unbridled
passions and the conquest of the majority by the minority; conquering
or conquered, a choice must be made between these two extreme
conditions; there is no middle course. After the 9th of Thermidor,
the last veils are torn away, and the instincts of license and
domination, the ambitions of individuals, fully display themselves.
There is no concern for public interests or for the rights of the
people; it is clear that the rulers form a band, that France is their
prey, and that they intend to hold on to it for and against everybody,
by every possible means, including bayonets. Under this civil régime,
a clean sweep of the broom at the center makes it necessary to be on
the side of numbers. - In the armies, especially in the army of Italy,
republican faith and patriotic abnegation, since the territory became
free, have given way to natural appetites and military passions.[32]
Barefoot, in rags, with four ounces of bread a day, paid in assignats
which are not accepted in the markets, both officers and men desire
above all things to be relieved of their misery; "the poor fellows,
after three years of longing on the summits of the Alps, reach the
promised land, and want to enjoy it."[33] Another spur consists in the
pride which is stimulated by the imagination and by success; add to
this the necessity for finding an outlet for their energy, the steam
and high pressure of youth ; nearly all are very young men, who regard
life, in Gallic or French fashion, as a party of pleasure and as a
duel. But to feel brave and to prove that one is so, to face bullets
for amusement and defiantly, to abandon a successful adventure for a
battle and a battle for a ball, to enjoy ones-self and take risks to
excess, without dissimulating, and with no other object than the
sensation of the moment,[34] to revel in excitement through emulation
and danger, is no longer self-devotion, but giving one's-self up to
one's fancies ; and, for all who are not harebrained, to give one's-
self up to one's fancies means to make one's way, obtain promotion,
pillage so as to become rich, like Massena, and conquer so as to
become powerful, like Bonaparte. - All this is understood between the
general and his army from the very first,[35] and, after one year's
experience, the understanding is perfect. One moral is derived from
their common acts, vague in the army, precise in the general; what the
army only half sees, he sees clearly; if he urges his comrades on, it
is because they follow their own inclination. He simply has a start on
them, and is quicker to make up his mind that the world is a grand
banquet, free to the first-comer, but at which, to be well served, one
must have long arms, be the first to get helped, and let the rest take
what is left.

So natural does this seem to him, he says so openly and to men who are
not his intimates; to Miot, a diplomat, and to Melzi a foreigner:

"Do you suppose, says he to them,[36] after the preliminaries of
Leoben, "that to make great men out of Directory lawyers, the Carnots'
and the Barras, I triumph in Italy? Do you suppose also that it is for
the establishment of a republic? What an idea! A republic of thirty
million men! With our customs, our vices, how is that possible? It is
a delusion which the French are infatuated with and which will vanish
along with so many others. What they want is glory, the gratification
of vanity - they know nothing about liberty. Look at the army! Our
successes just obtained, our triumphs have already brought out the
true character of the French soldier. I am all for him. Let the
Directory deprive me of the command and it will see if it is master.
The nation needs a chief, one who is famous though his exploits, and
not theories of government, phrases and speeches by ideologists, which
Frenchmen do not comprehend. . . . As to your country, Monsieur de
Melzi, it has still fewer elements of republicanism than France, and
much less ceremony is essential with it than with any other. . . In
other respects, I have no idea of coming to terms so promptly with
Austria. It is not for my interest to make peace. You see what I am,
what I can do in Italy. If peace is brought about, if I am no longer
at the head of this army which has become attached to me, I must give
up this power, this high position I have reached, and go and pay court
to lawyers in the Luxembourg. I should not like to quit Italy for
France except to play a part there similar to that which I play here,
and the time for that has not yet come - the pear is not ripe."

To wait until the pear is ripe, but not to allow anybody else to
gather it, is the true motive of his political fealty and of his
Jacobin proclamations: "A party in favor of the Bourbons is raising
its head; I have no desire to help it along. One of these days I
shall weaken the republican party, but I shall do it for my own
advantage and not for that of the old dynasty. Meanwhile, it is
necessary to march with the Republicans," along with the worst, and'
the scoundrels about to purge the Five Hundred, the Ancients, and the
Directory itself, and then re-establish in France the Reign of Terror.
- In effect, he contributes to the 18th of Fructidor, and, the blow
struck, he explains very clearly why he took part in it:

"Do not believe[37] I did it in conformity with the ideas entertained
by those with whom I acted. I did - not want a return of the
Bourbons, and especially if brought back by Moreau's army and by
Pichegru. . . Finally, I will not take the part of Monk, I will not
play it, and I will not have others play it. . . . As for myself, my
dear Miot, I declare to you that I can no longer obey; I have tasted
command and I cannot give it up. My mind is made up. If I cannot be
master I will leave France."

There is no middle course for him between the two alter natives. On
returning to Paris he thinks of "overthrowing the Directory,[38]
dissolving the councils and of making himself dictator"; but, having
satisfied himself that there was but little chance of succeeding, "he
postpones his design" and falls back on the second course. "This is
the only motive of his expedition into Egypt."[39] - That, in the
actual condition of France and of Europe, the expedition is opposed to
public interests, that France deprives itself of its best army and
offers its best fleet to almost certain destruction, is of little
consequence provided, in this vast and gratuitous adventure, Bonaparte
finds the employment he wants, a large field of action and famous
victories which, like the blasts of a trumpet, will swell beyond the
seas and renew his prestige: in his eyes, the fleet, the army, France,
and humanity exist only for him and are created only for his service.
- If, in confirmation of this persuasion, another lesson in things is
still necessary, it will be furnished by Egypt. Here, absolute
sovereign, free of any restraint, contending with an inferior order of
humanity, he acts the sultan and accustoms himself to playing the
part.[40] His last scruples towards the human species disappear; "I
became disgusted with Rousseau"; he is to say, later on, "After seeing
the Orient: the savage man is a dog,"[41] and, in the civilized man,
the savage is just beneath the skin; if the intellect has become
somewhat polished, there is no change in his instincts. A master is
as necessary to one as to the other - a magician who subjugates his
imagination, disciplines him, keeps him from biting without occasion,
ties him up, cares for him, and takes him out hunting. He is born to
obey, does not deserve any better lot, and has no other right.

Become consul and afterward emperor, he applies the theory on a grand
scale, and, in his hands, experience daily furnishes fresh
verifications of the theory. At his first nod the French prostrate
themselves obediently, and there remain, as in a natural position; the
lower class, the peasants and the soldiers, with animal fidelity, and
the upper class, the dignitaries and the functionaries, with Byzantine
servility.- The republicans, on their side, make no resistance; on the
contrary, among these he has found his best governing instruments -
senators, deputies, state councilors, judges, and administrators of
every grade.[42] He has at once detected behind their sermonizing on
liberty and equality, their despotic instincts, their craving for
command, for leadership, even as subordinates; and, in addition to
this, with most of them, the appetite for money or for sensual
pleasures. The difference between the delegate of the Committee of
Public Safety and the minister, prefect, or subprefect under the
Empire is small; it is the same person in two costumes: at first in
the carmagnole, and later in the embroidered coat. If a rude, poor
puritan, like Cambon or Baudot, refuses to don the official uniform,
if two or three Jacobin generals, like Lecourbe and Delmas, grumble at
the coronation parade, Napoleon, who knows their mental grasp, regards
them as ignoramuses, limited to and rigid inside a fixed idea. - As to
the cultivated and intelligent liberals of 1789, he consigns them with
a word to the place where they belong; they are "ideologists"; in
other words, their pretended knowledge is mere drawing-room prejudice
and the imagination of the study. "Lafayette is a political ninny,"
the eternal "dupe of men and of things."[43] With Lafayette and some
others, one embarrassing detail remains namely:

* impartiality and generosity,
* constant care for the common good,
* respect for others,
* the authority of conscience,
* loyalty,
* and good faith.

In short, noble and pure motives.

Napoleon does not accept the denial thus given to his theory; when he
talks with people, he questions their moral nobleness. "General
Dumas,"[44] said he, abruptly, to Mathieu Dumas, "you were one of the
imbeciles who believed in liberty?" "Yes, sire, and I was and am still
one of that class." "And you, like the rest, took part in the
Revolution through ambition?" "No, sire, I should have calculated
badly, for I am now precisely where I stood in 1790."

"You were not sufficiently aware of the motives which prompted you;
you cannot be different from other people; it is all personal
interest. Now, take Massena. He has glory and honors enough; but he
is not content. He wants to be a prince, like Murat and like
Bernadotte. He would risk being shot to-morrow to be a prince. 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,[45] "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.[46] - 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;[47] he sees man as he needs to see him.


III. Napoleon's Dominant Passion: Power.

His mastery of the will of others. - Degree of submission required by
him. - His mode of appreciating others and of profiting by them. -
Tone of command and of conversation.

We at last confront his dominant passion, the inward abyss into which
instinct, education, reflection, and theory have plunged him, and
which is to engulf the proud edifice of his fortune - I mean, his
ambition. It is the prime motor of his soul and the permanent
substance of his will, so profound that he no longer distinguishes
between it and himself, and of which he is sometimes unconscious.

"I," said he to Roederer,[48] "I have no ambition," and then,
recollecting himself, he adds, with his ordinary lucidity, "or, if I
have any, it is so natural to me, so innate, so intimately associated
with my existence, that it is like the blood which flows in my veins
and the atmosphere I breathe." -

Still more profoundly, he likens it to that unconscious, savage, and
irresistible emotion which vibrates the soul from one end to the
other, to this universal thrill moving all living beings, animal or
moral, to those keen and terrible tremors which we call the passion of
love.

"I have but one passion,[49] one mistress, and that is France. I
sleep with her. She has never been false to me. She lavishes her
blood and treasures on me. If I need 500,000 men, she gives them to
me."

Let no one come between him and her. Let Joseph, in relation to the
coronation, abstain from claiming his place, even secondary and
prospective, in the new empire; let him not put forth his fraternal
rights.[50] "It is to wound me in the most tender spot." This he does,
and, "Nothing can efface that from my souvenirs. It is as if he had
told an impassioned lover that he had slept with his mistress, or
merely that he hoped to succeed with her. My mistress is power. I
have worked too hard to obtain her, to let her be ravished from me, or
even suffer anybody to covet her." This ambition, as avid as it is
jealous, which becomes exasperated at the very idea of a rival, feels
hampered by the mere idea of setting a limit to it; however vast the
acquired power, he would like to have it still more vast; on quitting
the most copious banquet, he still remains insatiate. On the day
after the coronation he said to Decrés:[51]

"I come too late, there is no longer anything great to accomplish. I
admit that my career is brilliant and that I have made my way
successfully. But what a difference alongside of antiquity! Take
Alexander! After having conquered Asia, and proclaimed himself to the
people as the son of Jupiter, with the exception of Olympias, who knew
what all this meant, and Aristotle, and a few Athenian pedants, the
entire Orient believed him. Very well, should I now declare that I was
the son of God Almighty, and proclaim that I am going to worship him
under this title, every market woman would hoot at me as I walked
along the streets. People nowadays know too much. Nothing is left to
do."

And yet, even on this secluded, elevated domain, and which twenty
centuries of civilization keeps inaccessible, he still encroaches, and
to the utmost, in a roundabout way, by laying his hand on the Church,
and next on the Pope; here, as elsewhere, he takes all he can get.
Nothing in his eyes, is more natural; he has a right to it, because he
is the only capable one.

"My Italian people[52] must know me well enough not to forget that
there is more in my little finger than in all their brains put
together."

Alongside of him, they are children, "minors," the French also, and
likewise the rest of mankind. A diplomat, who often saw him and
studied him under all as aspects, sums up his character in one
conclusive phrase:

"He considered himself an isolated being in this world, made to govern
and direct all minds as he pleased."[53]

Hence, whoever has anything to do with him, must abandon his
independence and become his tool of government.

"That terrible man," often exclaimed Decrés[54] "has subjugated us
all! He holds all our imaginations in his hands, now of steel and now
of velvet, but whether one or the other during the day nobody knows,
and there is no way to escape from them whatever they seize on they
never let go!"

Independence of any kind, even eventual and merely possible, puts him
in a bad mood; intellectual or moral superiority is of this order, and
he gradually gets rid of it;[55] toward the end he no longer tolerates
alongside of him any but subject or captive spirits. His principal
servants are machines or fanatics, a devout worshipper, like Maret, a
gendarme, like Savary,[56] ready to do his bidding. From the outset,
he has reduced his ministers to the condition of clerks; for he is
administrator as well as ruler, and in each department he watches
details as closely as the entire mass. Accordingly, he requires
simply for head of departments active pen pushers, mute executors,
docile and special hands, no need for honest and independent advisers.

"I should not know what to do with them," he said, "if they were not
to a certain extent mediocre in mind and character."

As to his generals, he admits himself that "he likes to award fame
only to those who cannot stand it." In any event, "he must be sole
master in making or unmaking reputations," according to his personal
requirements. Too brilliant a soldier would become too important; a
subordinate should never be tempted to be less submissive. To this
end he studies what he will omit in his bulletins, what alterations
and what changes shall be made in them.

"It is convenient to keep silent about certain victories, or to
convert the defeat of this or that marshal into a success. Sometimes
a general learns by a bulletin of an action that he was never in and
of a speech that he never made."

If he complains, he is notified to keep still, or by way of recompense
he is allowed to pillage, levy contributions, and enrich himself. On
becoming duke or hereditary prince, with half a million or a million
of revenue from his estate, he is not less held in subjection, for the
creator has taken precautions against his own creations.

"There are men,"[57] he said, "who I have made independent, but I know
well where to find them and keep them from being ungrateful."

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