ed. There was therefore no increase in the rate
of taxation, work was abundant, and under the forcing process the
wheels were moving in almost every department of trade and industry.
The price of the imperial bonds on the Bourse rose to ninety-nine, a
price never afterward reached in Napoleon's day.

There was one sharp pinch. Coffee and sugar were no longer luxuries,
but necessities; and through the continental embargo colonial wares
had become, and were likely to remain, very dear and very scarce. Such
substitutes as ingenuity could devise were gradually accepted for the
former; to provide the latter the beet-root industry was fostered by
every means. The Emperor kept a sample of sugar made from beets on his
chimney-piece as an ornament, and occasionally sent gifts of the
precious commodity to his fellow-sovereigns. The story is told that an
official who had been banished from favor recovered his standing
entirely by planting a whole estate with beets. Such traits were
considered evidence of plain, homely common sense by the people, who
enjoyed the sensation that their Emperor shared their feelings and
participated in their daily shifts.

CHAPTER VII

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