During my first two journeys I saw everywhere only that
the nations submitted unhesitatingly, as though Bonaparte were the
scourge which God Himself had sent to chastise them, and against
whom they were not allowed to revolt, although rivers of blood were
spilled. But I saw no prince who had the strength or courage, or
even the wish to rule as a free and independent sovereign over a
free people. The princes were everywhere content with being the
vassals of France; they deemed themselves happy to have secured by
their humiliation at least a title; they were striving to obtain by
base sycophancy additional territories and orders, and betraying
their own country and their own people in order to serve the Emperor
of France. It was a terrible, heart-rending spectacle presented by
Germany during these last years, and which could not but fill the
heart of every patriot with shame and despair. And yet this period
of degradation was necessary and even salutary, for it blinded
Napoleon by the glaring sunshine of his power; it rendered him
overbearing and reckless; he dared every thing, because he believed
he would succeed in every thing, and that the world had utterly
succumbed to his power. He dared all, trampled on every feeling of
justice, and thereby finally goaded the nations to resist him. In
1810 he exclaimed triumphantly, 'Three years yet, and I shall be
master of the world!' And when he lately took the field against
Russia, he said, 'After humiliating Russia and reducing her to an
Asiatic power, I shall establish at Paris a universal European court
and universal archives!' He believes himself to be the master of the
world; he thinks the thunderbolts of heaven are in his hands, and
his arrogance will drive him to destruction, for 'the gods first
blind him whom they intend to destroy.
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