Napoleon had grown up under the eighteenth-century dynastic system and, in a strange way, accepted its legitimacy. In it, as a Corsican of minor standing even in his hometown, he was illegitimate by definition, which meant that, at least in his own mind, the legitimacy of his rule depended on the permanence—and, indeed, the extent—of his conquests. Whenever there remained a ruler independent of his will, Napoleon felt obliged to pursue him. Incapable of restraint by concept, temperament, or experience, he launched his forces into Spain and Russia, neither of them essential to a geopolitical
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