Italy; and then began a regular triumph for us soldiers. Every man who
knew how to read and write became an officer; it rained dukedoms;
pensions were distributed with both hands; there were fortunes for the
general staff which didn't cost France a penny; and even common soldiers
received annuities with their crosses of the Legion of Honor--I get
mine to this day. In short, the armies of France were taken care of in
a way that had never before been seen.

But the Emperor, who knew that he was the emperor not only of the
soldiers but of all, remembered the bourgeois, and built wonderful
monuments for them, to suit their own taste, in places that had been as
bare before as the palm of your hand. Suppose you were coming from
Spain, for example, and going through France to Berlin. You would pass
under sculptured triumphal arches on which you'd see the common soldiers
carved just as beautifully as the generals.

In two or three years, and without taxing you people at all, Napoleon
filled his vaults with gold; created bridges, palaces, roads, schools,
festivals, laws, harbors, ships; and spent millions and millions of
money--so much, in fact, that if he'd taken the notion, they say, he
might have paved all France with five-franc pieces.

Finally, when he was comfortably seated on his throne, he was so
thoroughly the master of everything that Europe waited for his
permission before it even dared to sneeze. Then, as he had four brothers
and three sisters, he said to us in familiar talk, as if in the order of
the day: "Boys! Is it right that the relatives of your Emperor should
have to beg their bread? No! I want them to shine, just as I do. A
kingdom must be conquered, therefore, for every one of them; so that
France may be master of all; so that the soldiers of the Guard may make