'A clever man at his Court shows his cleverness best by pretending to be
dull,' said Caulaincourt, with some bitterness.

'And yet there are many famous characters there,' I remarked.

'If so, it is only by concealing their characters that they remain
there. His ministers are clerks, his generals are superior
aides-de-camp. They are all agents. You have this wonderful man in the
middle, and all around you have so many mirrors which reflect different
sides of him. In one you see him as a financier, and you call it
Lebrun. In another you have him as a _gendarme_, and you name it Savary
or Fouche. In yet another he figures as a diplomatist, and is called
Talleyrand. You see different figures, but it is really the same man.
There is a Monsieur de Caulaincourt, for example, who arranges the
household; but he cannot dismiss a servant without permission. It is
still always the Emperor. And he plays upon us. We must confess, de
Meneval, that he plays upon us. In nothing else do I see so clearly his
wonderful cleverness. He will not let us be too friendly lest we
combine. He has set his Marshals against each other until there are
hardly two of them on speaking terms. Look how Davoust hates
Bernadotte, or Lannes and Bessieres, or Ney and Massena. It is all they
can do to keep their sabres in they sheaths when they meet. And then he
knows our weak points. Savary's thirst for money, Cambaceres's vanity,
Duroc's bluntness, Berthier's foolishness, Maret's insipidity,
Talleyrand's mania for speculation, they are all so many tools in his
hand. I do not know what my own greatest weakness may be, but I am sure
that he does, and that he uses his knowledge.'

'But how he must work!' I exclaimed.