"Stay here.... after which you will be old, or rather we all shall be old, and I will send you to the Senate to drivel at your ease." Evidently,[1281] the nearer one is to his person the more disagreeable life becomes.[1282] "Admirably served, promptly obeyed to the minute, he still delights in keeping everybody around him in terror concerning the details of all that goes on in his palace." Has any difficult task been accomplished? He expresses no thanks, never or scarcely ever praises, and, which happens but once, in the case of M. de Champagny, Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is praised for having finished the treaty of Vienna in one night, and with unexpected advantages;[1283] this time, the Emperor has thought aloud, is taken by surprise; "ordinarily, he manifests approbation only by his silence."--When M. de Rémusat, prefect of the palace, has arranged "one of those magnificent fêtes in which all the arts minister to his enjoyment," economically, correctly, with splendor and success, his wife never asks her husband[1284] if the Emperor is satisfied, but whether he has scolded more or less. "His leading general principle, which he applies in every way, in great things as well as in small ones, is that a man's zeal depends upon his anxiety." How insupportable the constraint he exercises, with what crushing weight his absolutism bears down on the most tried devotion and on the most pliable characters, with what excess he tramples on and wounds the best dispositions, up to what point he represses and stifles the respiration of the human being, he knows as well as anybody. He was heard to say, "The lucky man is he who hides away from me in the depths of some province." And, another day, having asked M. de Ségur what people would say of him after his death, the latter enlarged on the regrets which would be universally expressed. "Not at all," replied the Emperor; and then, drawing in his breath in a significant manner indicative of universal relief, he replied, "They'll say, 'Whew!'"[1285] IV. His Bad Manners. His bearings in Society.--His deportment toward Women.--His disdain of Politeness.