[Footnote 1286: "The Ancient Regime," p. 125.--"æuvres de Louis XIV.," 191: "If there is any peculiar characteristic of this monarchy, it is the free and easy access of the subjects to the king; it an egalité de justice between both, and which, so to say, maintains both in a genial and honest companionship, in spite of the almost infinite distance in birth, rank, and power. This agreeable society, which enables persons of the Court to associate familiarly with us, impresses them and charms them more than one can tell."] [Footnote 1287: Madame de Rémusat, II., 32, 39.] [Footnote 1288: Madame de Rémusat, III., 169.] [Footnote 1289: Ibid., II., 32, 223, 240, 259; III., 169.] [Footnote 1290: Ibid., I., 112, II., 77.] [Footnote 1291: M. de Metternich, I., 286.--"It would be difficult to imagine any greater awkwardness than that of Napoleon in a drawing-room.--Varnhagen von Ense, "Ausgewählte Schriften," III., 177. (Audience of July 10, 1810): "I never heard a harsher voice, one so inflexible. When he smiled, it was only with the mouth and a portion of the cheeks; the brow and eyes remained immovably sombre,... This compound of a smile with seriousness had in it something terrible and frightful."--On one occasion, at St. Cloud, Varnhagen heard him exclaim over and over again, twenty times, before a group of ladies, "How hot!"] [Footnote 1292: Mme. de Rémusat, II., 77, 169.--Thibaudeau, "Mémoires sur le Consulat," p. 18: "He sometimes pays them left-handed compliments on their toilet or adventures, which was his way of censuring morals."--"Mes souvenirs sur Napoléon," 322 by le Comte Chaptal: "At a fête, in the Hôtel de Ville, he exclaimed to Madame----, who had just given her name to him: 'Good God, they told me you were pretty!' To some old persons: 'You haven't long to live! To another lady: 'It is a fine time for you, now your husband is on his campaigns!' In general, the tone of Bonaparte was that of an ill-bred lieutenant. He often invited a dozen or fifteen persons to dinner and rose from the table before the soup was finished... The court was a regular galley where each rowed according to command."] [Footnote 1293: Madame de Rémusat, I., 114, 122, 206; II., 110, 112.] [Footnote 1294: Ibid., I., 277.]