which amused observers. The aspect of the Gallery of Diana was most
impressive. On the Empress's table shone a golden service amid glass and
Sevres ware. During the supper the men strolled up and down the gallery,
but as soon as the Emperor appeared, awe and fear appeared on every face.
It seemed as if the times of Louis XIV. had returned, of which La Bruyere
said: "Nothing so disfigures certain courtiers as the presence of their
Prince; I can sometimes scarcely recognize them, so altered are their
features, so degraded their faces. The proud and haughty ones are the most
disturbed, for they change the most; and the upright and modest man comes
out best; he has nothing to change." The Duchess of Abrantes, recalling
the intimidation caused by Napoleon's approach, wrote: "Even those who
nowadays talk about the Corsican with a great show of scorn, those very
ones (I have seen them, and I am not the only one,) were the most timid
before the very shadow of his hat." The women trembled even more. They
dreaded the questions the Emperor might put to them, and, according to
Madame de Remusat, there was not one who would not gladly have been
anywhere else. During the First Empire, everything, even the festivities,
wore a military air. The sovereign always had the air of a commanding
general. Discipline prevailed, at a ball as well as in a camp, and the
young men took part in those pleasures only to return with renewed zeal
and courage to the battle-field.




VIII.

THE ETIQUETTE OF THE IMPERIAL PALACE.