In this, and on similar occasions, Napoleon overshot his aim, and diminished to a certain extent his reputation, by seeming to set a value upon honours, titles, and ceremonies, which, if matters of importance to other courts, were certainly not such as _he_ ought to have rested his dignity upon. Ceremonial is the natural element of a long-established court, and etiquette and title are the idols which are worshipped there. But Buonaparte reigned by his talents and his sword. Like Mezentius in the Æneid, he ought to have acknowledged no other source of his authority.[218] It was imprudent to appear to attach consequence to points, which even his otherwise almost boundless power could not attain, since his nobility and his court-ceremonial must still retain the rawness of novelty, and could no more possess that value, which, whether real or imaginary, has been generally attached to ancient institutions and long descent, than the Emperor could, by a decree of his complaisant Senate, have given his modern coinage the value which antiquaries attach to ancient medals. It was imprudent to descend to a strife in which he must necessarily be overcome; for where power rests in a great measure on public opinion, it is diminished in proportion to its failure in objects aimed at, whether of greater or less consequence. This half-feudal half-oriental establishment of grand feudatories, with which Buonaparte now began to decorate the structure of his power, may be compared to the heavy Gothic devices with which modern architects sometimes overlay the front of their buildings, where they always encumber what they cannot ornament, and sometimes overload what they are designed to support.[219] [Sidenote: NEW NOBILITY.] The system of the new noblesse was settled by an Imperial edict of Napoleon himself, which was communicated to the Senate 30th March, 1806, not for the purpose of deliberation or acceptance, but merely that, like the old Parliament of Paris, they might enter it upon their register. The court of Buonaparte now assumed a character of the strictest etiquette, in which these important trifles, called by a writer on the subject the "Superstitions of Gentlemen Ushers," were treated as matters of serious import, and sometimes occupied the thoughts of Napoleon himself, and supplied the place of meditated conquests, and the future destruction or erection of kingdoms.