who created them have disappeared from the earth, and that they likewise
often bear false-witness to remote posterity of the reality of merely
fabulous conquests. Bonaparte was, however, mistaken as to the mode of
accomplishing the object he had in view. His ciphers, his trophies, and
subsequently his eagles, splendidly adorned the monuments of his reign.
But why did he wish to stamp false initials on things with which neither
he nor his reign had any connection; as, for example the old Louvre? Did
he imagine that the letter, "N" which everywhere obtruded itself on the
eye, had in it a charm to controvert the records of history, or alter the
course of time?

--[When Louis XVIII. returned to the Tuileries in 1814 he found that
Bonaparte had been an excellent tenant, and that he had left
everything in very good condition.]--

Be this as it may, Bonaparte well knew that the fine arts entail lasting
glory on great actions, and consecrate the memory of princes who protect
and encourage them. He oftener than once said to me, "A great reputation
is a great poise; the more there is made, the farther off it is heard.
Laws, institutions, monuments, nations, all fall; but the noise continues
and resounds in after ages." This was one of his favourite ideas. "My
power," he would say at other times, "depends on my glory, and my glory
on my victories. My power would fall were I not to support it by new
glory and new victories. Conquest has made me what I am, and conquest
alone can maintain me." This was then, and probably always continued to
be, his predominant idea, and that which prompted him continually to
scatter the seeds of war through Europe. He thought that if he remained
stationary ha would fall, and he was tormented with the desire of
continually advancing. Not to do something great and decided was, in his
opinion, to do nothing. "A newly-born Government," said he to me, "must