“Oh, sire, some town, some province, some kingdom.” He laughed, looking at her slyly. “And supposing you should lose?” “Your Majesty is in funds and will perhaps deign to pay for me.” The answer pleased. He loved bold talk, prompt replies, definite answers. Halting, uncertain, indefinite people he could never endure. Answer quick and answer positively, and your reply, though untrue, might please him better than if you hesitatingly told him the truth. The same lively writer gives another lifelike picture of Napoleon in one of his fits of ill temper. One day at Warsaw he received information that General Victor, bearing important despatches, had been captured by the Prussians. This piece of news enraged the Emperor. It chanced that upon the same day a Dutch delegation arrived to congratulate him upon the victory of Jena. They were admitted to audience just before the Emperor’s regular reception. “It was near ten o’clock, and we (those in the reception room) had been awaiting a long time ... when, the door being noisily thrown open, we saw the fat Dutchmen, in their scarlet robes, roll rather than walk in. The Emperor was prodding them, exclaiming in rather loud tones, ‘Go on! go on!’ The poor envoys lost their heads, and tumbled all over each other.” Princess Potocka says that she felt like laughing; but when she looked at the Emperor’s face, she did not dare. “The music soothed him quickly; toward the end of the concert his gracious smile returned, and he addressed pleasant words to the ladies he liked best, before sitting down to his whist table. “Excepting foreign ministers, and some of the high functionaries at play, all stood while Napoleon sat. This did not displease Prince Murat, who lost no opportunity to pose and to strike attitudes which he judged appropriate to show off the beauty of his figure. But little Prince Borghese was enraged and still had not the courage to sit down.” But the Emperor’s amusements did not confine themselves to such things as whist and quadrilles alone. A certain Madame Walewski, “exquisitely pretty,” “her laugh fresh, her eyes soft, her face seductive,” caught the attention of the imperial visitor. “Married at sixteen to an octogenarian who never appeared in public, Madame Walewski’s position in society was that of a young widow.” She was “lovely and dull,” tempting and not unyielding. Talleyrand’s diplomacy is said to have done some very humble work as go-between, and the Madame was soon known to be the Emperor’s favorite. Josephine, hearing vague rumors of high-doings at the Polish capital, generously offered to brave the rigors of travel and season to join her absent spouse. In the gentlest manner in the world he insisted that she stay where she was.