Gradually, the brilliancy of the sun that had so long dazzled the eyes of all Europe began to wax pale, and the luminous star of Napoleon to grow dim among the dark clouds that were gathering around him. Fortune had accorded him all that it could bestow upon a mortal. It had laid all the crowns of Europe at his feet, and made him master of all the monarchies and peoples. Napoleon's antechamber in Erfurt and in Dresden had been the rendezvous of the emperors, kings, and princes of Europe, and England alone had never disguised its hostility beneath the mask of friendship, and bent the knee to a hated and feared neighbor. Napoleon, the master of Europe, whom emperors and kings gladly called "brother," could now proudly remember his past; he had now risen so high that he no longer had cause to deny his humble origin; this very lowliness had now become a new triumph of his grandeur. On one occasion, during the congress at Erfurt, all the emperors, kings, and princes, were assembled around Napoleon's table. He occupied the seat between his enthusiastic friend the Emperor of Russia, and his father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria. Opposite them sat the King of Prussia, his ally, although Napoleon had deprived him of the Rhine provinces; and the Kings of Bavaria and Würtemberg, to whom Napoleon had given crowns, whose electorate and duchy he had converted into kingdoms, and of whom the first had given his daughter in marriage to Napoleon's adopted son, Eugene, and the second his daughter to Napoleon's brother Jerome. There were, further, at the table, the King of Saxony and the Grand-duke of Baden, to the latter of whom Napoleon had given the hand of Josephine's niece, Stephanie de Beauharnais. All these were princes, "by the grace of God," of brilliant and haughty dynasties; and in their midst sat the son of the advocate of Corsica--he, the Emperor of France--he, upon whom the gaze of all these emperors and kings was fastened in admiration and respect. Napoleon's extraordinary memory had just been the topic of conversation, and the emperor was about to explain how he had brought it to such a state of perfection. "While I was still a sub-lieutenant," began Napoleon, and instantly his hearers let fall their gaze, and looked down in shame at their plates, while a cloud of displeasure passed over the brow of the emperor of Austria at this mention of the low origin of his son-in-law. Napoleon observed this, and for an instant his eagle glance rested on the embarrassed countenances that surrounded him; he then paused for a moment. He began again, speaking with sharp emphasis: "When I still had the honor of being a sub-lieutenant," said he, and the Emperor Alexander of Russia, the only one of the princes who had remained unembarrassed, laid his hand on the emperor's shoulder, smiled approvingly, and listened with interest and pleasure to the emperor's narrative of the time when he "still had the honor of being a sub-lieutenant[21]."