The habits of the favourite were as follows. He rose early, drove or rode for an hour, and after breakfast transacted business for a time. He then relieved the tedium of that time by witnessing exhibitions of skill and daring by his private matadors, after which he spent about three hours in the society of the Queen. He then devoted the same length of time to the conduct of public business with the King; and the day ended with dinner, fetes, the opera, or the consideration of requests for patronage. This function of State generally occupied three evenings in the week; and on these occasions a crowd of some 250 suitors filled his meanly lit ante-room with jealous expectancy and long baffled hopes.[384] Certainly the representatives of monarchy at this time of acute trial were unequal to the strain. Catharine of Russia was supremely able, but no less corrupt. Frederick William of Prussia equalled her in vice and in nothing else. Francis of Austria had the brain of a master of ceremonies; George III that of a model squire; Ferdinand of Naples was in his place in the kennel; Victor Amadeus of Sardinia, in the confessional. It is difficult to say to what place Charles IV of Spain and his consort can most fitly be assigned; for they could not live apart from Godoy; and with Godoy they would have been excluded from any residence but the royal palace of Spain. The policy of that Court wavered under his whims and devices. Hated by the grandees, loathed by honest people, and yet fawned on by all alike, he sought to strengthen his power by jobbery, with results fatal to the public services. Such a man evades difficulties instead of grappling with them. He lives for the day. "After me the deluge" is the motto of all Godoys.