The girl Napoleon had been before she became a soldier, and later a monarch, didn't seem all that different from who she is now—and yet, she was not the same at all. In her own words, she can grasp a thousand facts with a single glance; and with each glance, her mind gets flooded with information. The difference is, in the past it was all she could do not to fall apart when faced with her own uncontrollable intellect and the countless phenomena the world had to offer.