Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/53

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Taine's Portrait.
37

a brief note on its situation and antecedents, and therefore its demonstrated character, eventual disposition, and probable conduct. Each label, or strip of paper, holds a summing-up; all these partial summaries, methodically classified, terminate in totals, and the totals of the three atlases combined together thus furnish their possessor with an estimate of his disposable forces. Now, in 1809, however full these atlases, they are clearly imprinted on Napoleon's mind; he knows not only the total and the partial summaries, but also the slightest details; he reads them readily and at every hour; he comprehends in a mass, and in all particulars, the various nations he governs directly or through some one else; that is to say, sixty million men, the different countries he has conquered or overrun, consisting of seventy thousand square miles; at first France increased by the addition of Belgium and Piedmont; next Spain, from which he is just returned, and where he has placed his brother Joseph; Southern Italy, where, after Joseph, he has placed Murat; Central Italy, where he occupies Rome; Northern Italy, where Eugène is his delegate; Dalmatia and Istria, which he has joined to his empire; Austria, which he invades for the second time; the Confederation of the Rhine, which he has made and which he directs; Westphalia and Holland, where his brothers are only his lieutenants; Prussia, which he has subdued and mutilated, and which he