Amidst all these dignitaries, no one interested the public so much as he, for whom, and by whom the assembly was collected; the wonderful being who could have governed the world, but could not rule his own restless mind. When visible, Napoleon was the principal figure of the group; when absent, every eye was on the door, expecting his entrance.[105] He was chiefly employed in business in his cabinet, while the other crowned personages (to whom, indeed, he left but little to do) were wandering abroad in quest of amusement. The feasts and banquets, as well as the assemblies of the royal personages and their suites, after the theatrical representations, were almost all at Napoleon's expense, and were conducted in a style of splendour, which made those attempted by any of the other potentates seem mean and paltry. The youthful Empress had her share of these days of grandeur. "The reign of Maria Louisa," said her husband, when at St. Helena, "has been very short, but she had much to make her enjoy it. She had the world at her feet." Her superior magnificence in dress and ornaments, gave her a great pre-eminence over her mother-in-law, the Empress of Austria, betwixt whom and Maria Louisa there seems to have existed something of that petty feud, which is apt to divide such relations in private life. To make the Austrian Empress some amends, Buonaparte informs us, that she often visited her daughter-in-law's toilette, and seldom went back without receiving some marks of her munificence.[106] Perhaps we may say of this information, as Napoleon says of something else, that an Emperor should not have known these circumstances, or at least should not have told them. The truth is, Buonaparte did not love the Empress of Austria; and though he represents that high personage as showing him much attention, the dislike was mutual. The daughter of the Duke of Modena had not forgot her father's sufferings by the campaigns of Italy.[107]