It was just before this pregnant event that Napoleon had freed his mind to Roederer concerning the ambitions of Joseph and his family in general. Already his brothers and sisters were organized for the enterprise of exploiting their relationship, and already they were rash in their claims. The elder brother was essentially a man of the clan epoch in the development of society, and begrudged the ascendancy of his junior. He was nevertheless clamorous for wealth and power, using his brother's ministers to secure them, to demand them as a right. To this the younger retorted: My brothers are nothing except through me, great because I made them so. The French people knows them only by what I have said. There are thousands of persons in France who have rendered greater service to the state than they. I will not abide that they be set beside me in the same row. Joseph is not destined to reign. I was born in poverty; like me, he was born in the lowest mediocrity. I have raised myself by my own deeds, he has remained exactly where he was born. From this position Napoleon never swerved: for them there must be no expectation of empire. Minor kingdoms, principalities, and duchies he was glad to distribute with lavish hand. Wealth beyond the dreams of avarice they accumulated with his connivance. Lucien married to his own liking and remained a commoner, but in the positions he held under the consulate and empire he left no source of gain untouched and lived like a prince, if he had not the title. Joseph was twice a king, unable in both cases to decide whether he should be true to his imperial brother or to his subjects, a vacillator in Spain, as for a time was Louis in Holland: the latter, however, was at least loyal to his folk if not to his superior. Jerome's career was a farce, in marriage, in statesmanship, in everything: it is relieved only by the high character of the consort Napoleon selected for him. Of the women in the family, not much can be said which indicates a sense of gratitude to their imperial brother for his prodigal favors. Caroline, the spouse of Murat, was a woman of force, and was more loyal to her benefactor than any of his blood, unless it were the giddy, light, beautiful, fascinating Pauline, who, though a child of the sixteenth rather than the nineteenth century, had a heart and showed it in great crises.