Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/52

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36
Napoleon.

that it necessarily falls short of all that Napoleon had to know and remember.

"He has mentally within him three principal atlases, always at hand, each composed of 'about twenty note-books,' each distinct, and each regularly posted up. The first one is military, forming a vast collection of topographical charts as minute as those of an état-major, with detailed plans of every stronghold, also specific indications of the local distribution of all forces on sea and on land—crews, regiments, batteries, arsenals, storehouses, present and future resources in supplies of men, horses, vehicles, arms, ammunition, food, and clothing. The second, which is civil, resembles the heavy, thick volumes published every year, in which we now read the state of the Budget, and comprehend, first, the innumerable items of ordinary and extraordinary receipt and expenditure, internal taxes, foreign contributions, the products of the domains in France and out of France, the fiscal services, pensions, public works, and the rest; next, all administrative statistics, the hierarchy of functions and of functionaries, Senators, Deputies, Ministers, Prefects, Bishops, Professors, Judges, and those under their orders, where each of these resides, with his rank, jurisdiction, and salary. The third is a vast biographical and moral dictionary, in which, as in the pigeonholes of the Chef de Police, each notable personage and local group, each professional or social body, and even each population, had a label, along with