THE NEW FEUDALISM[16]
[Footnote 16: See Blanc: Napoleon Ier. Taine: Le regime
moderne. Pasquier: Memoires, Histoire de mon temps. Meneval:
Napoleon et Marie-Louise. V^te de Broc: La vie en France sous
le premier empire. Metternich: Memoires. Mme. de Remusat:
Memoires.]
Imperial France -- The Aristocracy -- The Vassal Sovereigns --
Suppression of the Tribunate -- The Right of Entail -- Evasions
of Law -- The New Nobility -- Titles and Emoluments -- Style in
the First Empire -- Theory of the University -- Its Establishment
-- The Lycees -- Effects of the System -- Regulation of the Court
-- The Emperor's Moods -- Matrimonial Alliances with Royalty --
Gloom at Court -- Decline of Talleyrand's Influence -- His New
Role.
[Sidenote: 1807-08]
It was not long before the people of Paris and of all France were in
the best possible humor; they were busy, they were clothed, they were
fed, they were making and saving money. With every hour grew the
feeling that their unity and strength were embodied in the Emperor.
Mme. de Remusat was tired of his ill-breeding: it shocked her to
observe his coarse familiarity, to see him sit on a favorite's knee,
or twist a bystander's ear till it was afire; to hear him sow
dissension among families by coarse innuendo, and to see him crush
society that he might rule it. But such things would not have shocked
the masses of plain burgher Frenchmen at all. When the querulous lady
opened her troubles to the sympathetic Talleyrand, and bemoaned the
sad fate which kept her at the imperial court to gain a living, his
reply was not consoling. As time passed, the gulf between the ruler
and his venal but soft-spoken minister had been widening, and the
Prince of Benevento had oftentimes to hear taunts and reproaches in
scenes of such violence as were unsuspected even by the complaining
lady in waiting. But nevertheless Talleyrand replied to her that
Napoleon still stood for the unity of France, and it was both his and
her duty to endure and support their monarch.
No doubt the Emperor was perfectly aware of the situation. But he felt
that what was a new aristocracy in truth, though not yet so in name,
must be appeased as well as the people. He was furious at times with
the venality of his associates. Talleyrand once admitted that he had
taken sixty millions from various German princes. Massena, Augereau,
Brune, and Junot were not so colossal in their greed, but they were
equally ill-disposed, and very successful in lining their coffers.
With Talleyrand Napoleon never joked; but when he wished to give a
warning to the others he drew a bill for some enormous sum on one or
other of them, and deposited it with a banker. There is no evidence
that such a draft was ever dishonored. On one occasion Massena
disgorged two millions of francs in this way. Of the ancient nobility
the Emperor once said, with a sneer: "I offered them rank in my army,
they declined the service. I opened my antechambers to them, they
rushed in and filled them." To this sweeping statement there were many
noteworthy exceptions, but on the whole Napoleon never classed the
estate of the French nobles lower than they deserved. Still they had a
power which he recognized, and it was with a sort of grim humor that
he began to distribute honors and the sops of patronage among both the
old and the new aristocracy--a process which only made the latter
independent and failed to win the affections of the former.
It was in the hope of securing the good will of the ancient nobility
that he took two steps radical in their direct negation of
Revolutionary principles: the destruction of the tribunate and the
restoration of the right of entail. The connection between the two
lies in the tendency of both: merging tribunate and legislature made
it easy to substitute for an elective senate a hereditary house of
lords. Feeling himself sufficiently strong, Napoleon clearly intended
to gratify in others the weak human pride which, as Montesquieu says,
desires the eternity of a name, and thereby to erect a four-square
foundation for the perpetuity of his own dynasty. The brothers Joseph,
Louis, and Jerome were now no longer Bonapartes, but Napoleons, ruling
as Joseph Napoleon, Louis Napoleon, Jerome Napoleon, over their
respective fiefs. Murat, the brother-in-law, was already provided for
in the same way, and there were three reigning princes among the
satellites of the imperial throne. All these could transmit their name
and dominions in the line of hereditary succession. It may be read in
the "Moniteur" of July, 1810, that, in whatever position they were
placed by Napoleon's politics and the interest of his empire, their
first duty was to him, their second to France. "All your other duties,
even those to the people I may intrust to you, are only secondary."
Ten years earlier General Bonaparte had declared that what the French
wanted was glory and the gratification of their vanity; of liberty, he
said, they knew nothing. The Emperor Napoleon, in one of his spoken
musings, applied the same conception to all continental Europeans,
saying that there were everywhere a few men who knew what freedom was
and longed to secure it; but that the masses needed paternal guidance,
and enjoyed it as long as they were comfortable. The asylum of this
enlightened minority in France was for a time the tribunate; to many
it seemed that, if free government be government by discussion, in
the tribunate alone was any semblance of freedom left; its name had
consequently retained a halo of nobility, and its mere existence was a
comfort to the few who still recalled the ideals of the Revolution.
But, in truth, the body itself had ceased to have any dignity
whatsoever. The system of legislation was briefly this: from the
throne came a message exposing the situation of the country, the
council of state then formulated the measures set forth as necessary,
the tribunate approved them in one or other of its sections, and the
legislature gave the enacting vote. The suppression of the tribunate,
therefore, appeared to the general public like final proceedings in
bankruptcy. Some of the members went into the legislature, some into
official administrative positions, and the right of discussion in
committee behind closed doors was transferred to certain sections of
the legislature. By way of compensation it was "decreed by the
senate," as the formality was called, that no man could thenceforth
sit in the legislature until he had reached the age of forty. Perhaps
Napoleon remembered that his own fiery ambition had made him emperor
before he was thirty-six. The measure was announced to the tribunes as
a mere matter of course, and created no stir at the time. In later
years it was recalled that the English Parliament under the
Plantagenets had never entirely perished, and so was ready for
powerful deeds in more propitious days. But in France's later crisis
the French tribunate could not be revived; with it disappeared forever
the last rallying-point for the scattered remnant still true to the
Revolution.
The complement of this negative measure was the creation of the right
to transmit together, and for an indefinite time, a title and the
realty on which its dignity reposed. Though the restoration of this
institution was slightly anterior in time to the other as to its
beginnings, yet the final decree was not published until 1808, and
logically it is complementary and subsequent to it. To this day many
men of ancient and honorable name in France have not ceased to bemoan
the destruction of primogeniture by the Revolution and the Code
Napoleon. They are proud to transmit their title untarnished to their
descendants, are ready to make serious sacrifices in its behalf, to
exercise the rigid self-denials of family control for its sake, and to
engrave the motto of "noblesse oblige" on their hearts in order to
sustain it; but they bitterly complain that without the majorat, and
the transmission of outward, visible supports in land and houses to
strengthen it, the empty sound carries little weight. The compulsory
subdivision of estates at the death of the owner enables every scion
to live, if not to thrive, on the home stock. The failure of France in
colonization is largely due to the absence of men from good families
among the colonizers, while England sends her younger sons to the ends
of the earth, there to found new houses and perpetuate the old line
under favorable conditions. Hence, too, the petty dimensions of
aristocratic French life: little fortunes, little ambitions, little
establishments, little families, among that very class in society
which by cultivating the sentiment of honor should leaven the
practical, materialistic temper of the multitude. At the present time,
when the burghers amass in trade far greater fortunes than the
aristocracy possess, when the learned secure greater power by
intellectual vigor, when the demagogues grow mightier by the command
of votes, titles alone carry little weight, and the virtues of honor,
of chivalry, of elegance, can with difficulty display their example.
No argument can ever restore general confidence in the institution of
primogeniture, but it dies hard, even in England. In the United
States the absolute liberty of testamentary disposition enables a
wealthy father to found a family almost as perfectly as if the right
of entail existed, and the bulk of large fortunes is constantly left
by will to the most capable son, in order that he may keep up the
family name, the family estates, and the family pride. But under the
provisions of the Code Napoleon such a course is impossible. As the
lawgiver did not hesitate to contravene his own legislation in the
case of the Jews, so he again disregarded it in order to consolidate
that aristocracy of which he hoped to make another strong prop to his
throne; for he already had the Church and the people. "The code," he
said, "was made for the welfare of the people; and if that welfare
demands other measures, we must take them." This was not difficult,
because the imperial power had gradually shaped two instruments
wherewith to act: one was the laws sanctioned by the legislature and
pertaining ordinarily to abstract questions of jurisprudence; the
other was the Emperor's personal decrees, which, though discussed by
the council of state, were the expression of the Emperor's will, and
covered in their scope the whole field of authority.
It was by the latter course that he had intended to create the new
nobility. Ostensibly the measure was to be the last blow of the ax at
the root of feudalism. The new dignities carried no privilege with
them; they were, it was explained, a sort of civic crown to which any
one might aspire, and their creation was therefore in no way
derogatory to the principle of equality. The holders might become too
independent and self-reliant, they might even display a class spirit;
but the Emperor felt himself to be striving upward, these creatures of
his would have to run fast before they could outstrip their master. At
St. Helena the prisoner, recalling with bitterness the ingratitude of
his beneficiaries, declared that he took the unfortunate step in order
to reconcile France with the rest of Europe. He was by that time aware
that though the Legion of Honor was, and would continue to be, an
institution dear to the French heart, this one was not so, and needed
an apology; for his imperial nobility had never been taken seriously
or kindly by the people, who could not draw the nice distinction
between a feudal and an imperial aristocracy. Even in the first steps
of his enterprise he was made to feel the need of caution, and it was
by statute, after all, not by decree, that the whole matter was
finally regulated. So curious is popular fickleness that an Emperor
who could boldly tyrannize in almost any other direction felt that he
dared not take the risk of constituting himself a fountain of honor,
such as legitimate monarchs were.
The system was for the world outside like some fairy wonder completed
overnight, since the duchies had been ready the year before. The
Italian titles were the most honorable and the most highly endowed.
They were either at once or later given as follows: Soult, Duke of
Dalmatia; Mortier, Duke of Treviso; Savary, Duke of Rovigo; Bessieres,
Duke of Istria; Duroc, Duke of Friuli; Victor, Duke of Belluno;
Moncey, Duke of Conegliano; Clarke, Duke of Feltre; Massena, Duke of
Rivoli; Lannes Duke of Montebello; Marmont, Duke of Ragusa; Oudinot,
Duke of Reggio; Macdonald, Duke of Taranto; Augereau, Duke of
Castiglione; Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte Corvo. In Germany there were
created three similar duchies--Auerstaedt for Davout, Elchingen for
Ney, and Dantzic for Lefebvre. Berthier was made Prince of Neufchatel.
So much for the military officials. In civil life there were
corresponding distinctions: Cambaceres, Duke of Parma; Maret, Duke of
Bassano; Lebrun, Duke of Piacenza; Fouche, Duke of Otranto;
Champagny, Duke of Cadore. The members of the senate, the councilors
of state, the presiding officers of the legislature, and the
archbishops were all created counts. Each one of these titles was,
like the others, richly endowed with land from the public domains in
Poland, Germany, and Italy. But the distinction bestowed on the
soldiers was marked in the difference between the accompanying gifts
to them and those to civilians. The only portion of the great force
which had returned to France was the guard, who were instructed to
keep themselves as exclusive as possible. A most lavish
pension-system, as it was considered even in that age of military
splendor, drew from the army chest five hundred francs a year for
soldiers who had lost a limb; officers received as high as ten
thousand francs, according to the nature of their disabilities. But
the marshals were showered with gold. Berthier had a million; Ney,
Davout, Soult, and Bessieres, six hundred thousand each; Massena,
Augereau, Bernadotte, Mortier, and Victor, four hundred thousand
apiece; and the rest two hundred thousand. But even this was nothing
to what some of them secured later by holding several offices at once.
At one time Berthier had a yearly income of a million three hundred
and fifty-five thousand francs; Davout, of nine hundred and ten
thousand; Ney, of seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand; Massena, of
six hundred and eighty-three thousand. The ministers were able to
secure salaries averaging about two hundred thousand francs, and
ambassadors had incomes corresponding to their dignity. Caulaincourt,
the ablest of all the latter class, had eight hundred thousand francs
at St. Petersburg wherewith to support the imperial state of France.
It is interesting to note from Napoleon's letters that he had
occasionally to admonish some of these gentlemen to make use of their
titles.
The Revolution had chosen to find its artistic expression in the
correct and strict severity of classical forms. Napoleon had from the
beginning of his career been under the spell of Greek and Roman
examples. Thus it happened that the art of the First Empire was what
it is--heavy, conventional, and reminiscent. With the ever-growing
rigidity of censorship, literature sometimes took refuge in
abstractions, or, what is much the same thing, in the contemplation of
events so remote that their discussion could give no offense.
Sometimes authors accepted the curious task of defending the external
forms and results of the Revolution as expressed in the Empire, while
combating every principle from which the movement had sprung. Able men
like Chenier published some of their writings, and locked others in
their desks against a brighter day. In religion the Emperor's
principle was that his subjects should hate the English because they
were heretics, and the Pope because he was a fanatic. The "ideologues"
and "metaphysicians" were anarchists, for the public order was
endangered by their teachings. The newspapers were not only gagged,
but metamorphosed--the "French Citizen" into the "French Courier," the
"Journal of Debates" into the "Journal of the Empire." Their columns
were filled with laudations of the Emperor; their political articles
were virtually composed in the Foreign Office; and there was not a
symptom of anything like the existence of party feeling. A certain
journalist having been allowed to make statements concerning the
luxury at court, the editor of the offending paper was given to
understand that the Emperor would tolerate no such criticism nor any
remarks contrary to his interests.[17]
[Footnote 17: In general, for the censorship of the press see
Welschinger: La censure sous le Premier Empire. Sorel: Essais
d'histoire et de critique.]
But the crowning work of this period was the final realization of the
plan for organizing public instruction in what was designated by the
head of the state as the Imperial University. Though somewhat changed
in name and character, it exists to-day virtually as it came from the
maker's hand. Like the institution of the prefecture, it is a
faultless machine of equalization and centralization, molding the mass
of educated Frenchmen into one form, rendering them responsive and
receptive to authoritative ideas from their youth upward, and passive
in their attitude toward instruction. Joseph de Maistre used to preach
that, all social order depending on the authority of beliefs as well
as on the authority of behavior, no man who denied the supremacy of
the Pope would permanently admit the sovereignty of the state.
Napoleon furnished a standing refutation of this thesis. The whole
system of public instruction in France has under the third republic
not merely been secularized, but it has been made, and for a quarter
of a century has remained, substantially infidel. Twenty-five academic
generations of living French citizens, reckoning each year's output as
a generation, have come out from its laboratory with a minimum of
faith; but state supremacy and state socialism are, in a moderate
form, more prevalent among them than among any similar body of men
elsewhere.
The University of France means literally the totality of all
instruction in the country, organized by successive stages into a
single system, and rigidly controlled from above. The outlines
sketched in the law passed in 1802, and supplemented in 1806, were
carefully followed by Napoleon in his final step, and neither the
theory nor the method need be again discussed. It is significant that
it was an imperial decree, and not a statute, which on March
seventeenth, 1808, created the organism. There was an endowment of
four hundred million francs, and a separate budget, "in order that
instruction might not suffer by passing disturbances in imperial
finances." In order, also, that its doctrine might not feel the
influence of every passing philosophical fashion, the corporation was
subordinate to, but separate from, the ministry, with a grand master,
chancellor, and treasurer of its own, and thirty members, of whom ten
were appointed for life by the Emperor, the rest being annually
designated by the grand master. They made rules for the discipline,
revised the textbooks, and chose the instructors of all the
institutions of learning in all France, except some of the great
ecclesiastical seminaries and a few of the technical schools. At the
outset it was ordered that all the masters, censors, and teachers in
the great intermediate schools or lyceums should be celibates! The
professors might marry, but in that case they could not live in the
precincts of what was virtually a military barrack.
Liberal culture, so far as given, was provided in the lyceums, and
they really form the heart of the university. Under the Empire their
instruction was largely in mathematics, with a sprinkling of Latin. It
is now greatly broadened and elevated. The pupils of the primary
schools felt a quasi-dependence on the Emperor; those of the lyceums
were the very children of patronage, for the cheapness of their
education, combined with their semi-military uniforms and habits,
impressed at every turn on them and their families the immanence of
the Empire. They entered by government examinations; all their letters
passed through the head master's hands; they were put under a
threefold system of espionage culminating in the grand master; the one
hundred and fifty scholarships and bourses in each were paid by the
state; the punishments were, like those of soldiers, arrest and
imprisonment. With the acquisition of military habits the young
_lyceen_ could look forward to military promotion, for two hundred and
fifty of the most select were sent every year to the military schools,
where they lived at the Emperor's expense, expecting professional
advancement by the Emperor's patronage. Others of less merit were
detached for the civil service, and in that also their careers were at
the imperial mercy. They were daily and hourly reminded of Napoleon's
greatness, for twenty-four hundred foreigners from the vassal states
of the Empire were scattered among these institutions, where they were
turned into Frenchmen and docile subjects at the Emperor's expense,
while being virtually held as hostages for the good behavior of their
parents. These powerful engines did not work in vain. During the
comparatively short existence of the Empire their product assumed
enormous proportions, and largely modified the temper of society
throughout France. The youth educated by priests or tutors were found
unable to keep pace with their favored contemporaries from the
government schools, and from the first no prophet was needed to
foretell the destiny of private institutions and ecclesiastical
seminaries. Little by little they made way for or became annexed to
the lyceums which one after another were founded wherever needed. The
charges of the latter were, and are, very low; and thrifty fathers
appreciate the fact. The state is at enormous cost to support them;
but public sentiment, preferring indirect to direct taxation, approves
of the expenditure, while crafty statesmen, whether royalist,
imperialist, or republican, employ them to create citizens of the kind
in power at the time.
Throughout the late summer and autumn of 1807 the imperial court was
more stately than ever before. The old nobility became assiduous in
their attendance, and, as one of the Empress's ladies in waiting is
said to have remarked they "received good company." On his return
Napoleon had found Josephine's extravagance to be as unbounded as
ever; but he could not well complain, because, although for the most
part frugal himself, he had latterly encouraged lavishness in his
family. Still, it was not agreeable to have dressmakers' bills flung
into his carriage when driving in state with his consort, and on one
occasion he sent an unprincipled but clever milliner to the prison of
Bicetre for having disobeyed his orders in furnishing her wares to the
Empress at exorbitant prices. The person was so indispensable to the
court ladies, however, that they crowded her cell, and she was soon
released. At St. Cloud, Malmaison, the Tuileries, and Fontainebleau
the social vices of courts began to appear; but they were sternly
repressed, especially high play. By way of contrast, the city of Paris
was at that very moment debauched by a profusion of gambling-hells and
houses of prostitution, all licensed at an enormous figure by Fouche
and producing great revenues for the secret police. The gorgeous state
uniforms of the marshals, the rich and elegant costumes of the ladies,
the bespangled and begilt coats of the household, dancing,
theatricals, concerts, and excursions--all these elements should have
combined to create brilliancy and gaiety in the imperial circle, but
they did not.
There was something seriously amiss with the central figure. He was
often sullen and morose, often violent and even hysterical. To calm
his nervous agitation the court physician ordered warm baths, which he
spent hours in taking. Then again he was irregular in his habits,
being often somnolent during the daytime, but as frequently breaking
his rest at midnight to set the pens of his secretaries scampering to
keep pace with the flow of his speech. With old friends he was coarse
and severe: even the brutal Vandamme confessed that he trembled before
that "devil of a man," while Lannes was the only human being who still
dared to use the familiar "thou" in addressing his old comrade. To the
face of his generals the Emperor was merely cold: behind their backs
he sneered--saying, for instance, of Davout that he might give him
never so much renown, he would not be able to carry it; of Ney that he
was disposed to ingratitude and turbulence; of Bessieres, Oudinot, and
Victor that they were mere mediocrities. Among all these dazzling
stars he himself moved in simple uniform and in a cocked hat
ornamented with his favorite cheap little cockade. It was a
well-calculated vanity, for with increasing corpulence plainness of
dress called less attention to his waddling gait and growing
awkwardness of gesture.
The summer of 1807 saw the social triumph of the Bonaparte family, the
sometime Jacobins, but now emperor and kings. Jerome Napoleon was
married on August twenty-second to the Princess Catherine of
Wuertemberg. The Emperor had already spoken at Tilsit with the Czar
about unions for himself and family suitable to their rank, but the
hint of an alliance with the Romanoffs was coldly received. In the
Emperor's opinion this, however, was a really splendid match. The
Rhine princes and subsidiary monarchs hastened to Paris, and one of
them showed his want of perspicacity by marked attentions to
Josephine, which he hoped would secure her husband's favor. When men
of such lofty and undisputed lineage were joining what was apparently
an irresistible movement, the recusant nobility of France itself could
not well stand aloof any longer. It amused and interested the Emperor
to see them obey Fouche's hint, and throng to be introduced in the
correct way to the new and undisputed sovereign, not merely of France,
but of western Europe.
Moreover, they were no longer impertinent. They remembered the fate
meted out to Mme. de Stael for her solemn innuendos, and did not
forget that the last item in the indictment on which Mme. de Chevreuse
had been banished was a snippish remark to Napoleon's face. Astonished
at the splendor of her diamonds, he had in his own court clumsily
asked if they were all real. "Indeed, sire, I do not know," she
replied; "but they are good enough to wear here." In consequence,
therefore, of this new and now well-intentioned element the court
swelled in numbers and gained in grace, but not in joyousness. The
Empress was already foreboding her fate; there was the stiffness of
inaptitude about everything, even the amusement, and the languid
weariness of the ladies was an unforgiven imperial sin. The quick wit
of the Emperor remarked this annoying fact, and demanded counsel of
Talleyrand. The Prince of Benevento had by this time resigned his
position as minister, and the relations between himself and the
Emperor were strained, but he was not rebuked when he ventured on the
old license of speech. "It is because pleasure will not move at the
drum-tap," was his answer, "and you look as if you would command every
one just as you do the army: 'Ladies and gentlemen, forward march!'"
Talleyrand's numberless intrigues, his venality and self-seeking, his
cynicism and contemptuous airs, had finally destroyed his
preponderance with Napoleon, although he still retained much
influence. No one was better aware of the fact than he was. Thus far
he had reckoned himself an indispensable factor in the administration
of the Empire; now he saw that he was so no longer, that his time had
come.
He had a sterile mind, and was destitute of principle. Constructive
politics were beyond his powers, and he was hopelessly ignorant of
social movements. The real Europe of his time was to him a closed
book; and while Napoleon was well served in every other function of
state, because he himself could assist and supervise, he was
wretchedly betrayed in the matter of permanent gains by diplomacy, in
which he was personally a blunderer and a tyro. Talleyrand was a
distinguished and typical aristocrat of the old French school,
elegant, adroit, smooth-spoken, and sharp. He was an unequaled
courtier, influential by his moderation in word, gesture, and
expression, but a feeble adviser, and utterly incapable of broad
views. His character, being unequal to his skill, was not strong
enough either to curb or guide a headstrong master, for his intellect
was neither productive nor solid. No treaty ever made by him was
lasting, and he must have known that even the peace of Tilsit would
begin to crumble almost before the papers were signed. The balance of
Europe was disturbed but temporarily by that agreement, not
permanently, as had been intended; the attempted seclusion of Prussia
by Napoleon destroyed her old antagonism to other German powers, and
marked the beginning of amalgamation with all her sister states for
the reconstruction of an avenging German nationality.
Something may be forgiven to an adventurer in the storms of
revolution, but Talleyrand trimmed his sails to every wind, outrode
every storm, and made gains in every port. He was a trusted official
of the Republic, the Consulate, the Empire, and the restored monarchy.
Wise in his day and generation, he had long before made ready to
withdraw, if necessary, from active life, by the accumulation of an
enormous fortune, heaped up by means which scandalized even imperial
France. He had been embittered at the close of the Consulate by
Napoleon's determination that his ministers should not be his highest
dignitaries, his arch-officers. The title of "prince," with two
hundred thousand francs a year, was a poor consolation when men like
Lebrun and Cambaceres had the precedence as arch-treasurer and
arch-chancellor, while--most unendurable of all--they drew salaries of
three hundred and fifty thousand francs. Berthier, the Prince of
Neufchatel, had recently been made vice-constable to represent Louis
Bonaparte, who, though still constable, had left Paris to become Louis
Napoleon, King of Holland. This was Talleyrand's opportunity to resign
from the ministry on his own initiative. He demanded a dignity for
himself similar to that accorded to Berthier. The Emperor told him
that, accustomed to power as he had become, he would be unhappy in a
station which precluded his remaining in the cabinet. But the minister
knew his role in the little comedy, and, persisting, was on August
ninth made vice-grand elector, while Champagny, an excellent and
laborious official, took his seat at the council-board as minister of
external relations. Talleyrand's withdrawal had not the slightest
influence on the Emperor's foreign policy; in fact, the quidnuncs at
Fontainebleau declared that he was seen limping into Napoleon's office
almost every evening.[18] But he was so well known in every court, his
circle of personal acquaintances was so large, so timorous, and so
reverential, that superstitious men believed his retirement augured
the turn of Napoleon's fortunes.
[Footnote 18: Sorel, Vol. VII, pp. 191-2.]