"Nothing could exceed the order and regularity with which his household both as Consul and Emperor was conducted. The great things he accomplished, and the savings he made, without even the imputation of avarice or meanness, with the sum comparatively inconsiderable of fifteen millions of francs a year, are marvellous, and expose his successors, and indeed all European Princes, to the reproach of negligence or incapacity. In this branch of his government he owed much to Duroc. It is said that they often visited the markets of Paris (les halles) dressed in plain clothes and early in the morning. When any great accounts were to be submitted to the Emperor, Duroc would apprize him in secret of some of the minutest details. By an adroit allusion to them or a careless remark on the points upon which he had received such recent and accurate information, Napoleon contrived to impress his audience with a notion that the master's eye was every where. For instance, when the Tuileries were furnished, the upholsterer's charges though not very exorbitant, were suspected by the Emperor to be higher than the usual profit of that trade would have warranted. He suddenly asked some minister who was with him how much the egg at the end of the bell-rope should cost? 'J'ignore,' was the answer.--'Eh bien! nous verrons,' said he, and then cut off the ivory handle, called for a valet, and bidding him dress himself in plain and ordinary clothes, and neither divulge his immediate commission or general employment to any living soul, directed him to inquire the price of such articles at several shops in Paris, and to order a dozen as for himself. They were one-third less dear than those furnished to the palace. The Emperor, inferring that the same advantage had been taken in the other articles, struck a third off the whole charge, and directed the tradesman to be informed that it was done at his express command, because on _inspection_ he had himself discovered the charges to be by one-third too exorbitant. When afterwards in the height of his glory he visited Caen with the Empress Maria Louisa, and a train of crowned heads and princes, his old friend, M. Mechin, the Prefect, aware of his taste for detail, waited upon him with five statistical tables of the expenditure, revenue, prices, produce, and commerce of the departments. 'C'est bon,' said he, when he received them the evening of his arrival, 'vous et moi nous ferous bien de l'esprit sur tout cela demain au Conseil.' Accordingly, he astonished all the leading proprietors of the department at the meeting next day, by his minute knowledge of the prices of good and bad cyder, and of the produce and other circumstances of the various districts of the department. Even the Royalist gentry were impressed with a respect for his person, which gratitude for the restitution of their lands had failed to inspire, and which, it must be acknowledged, the first faint hope of vengeance against their enemies entirely