lculation as well as
from taste,[1289] he never ceases to be a monarch"; hence, "a mute,
frigid court.... more dismal than dignified; every face wears an
expression of uneasiness... a silence both dull and constrained."
At Fontainebleau, "amidst splendors and pleasures," there is no real
enjoyment nor anything agreeable, not even for himself. "I pity
you," said M. de Talleyrand to M. de Remusat, "you have to amuse the
unamusable." At the theatre he is abstracted or yawns. Applause is
prohibited; the court, sitting out "the file of eternal tragedies,
is mortally bored.... the young ladies fall asleep, people leave the
theatre, gloomy and discontented."--There is the same constraint in the
drawing-room. "He did not know how to appear at ease, and I believe that
he never wanted anybody else to be so, afraid of the slightest approach
to familiarity, and inspiring each with a fear of saying something
offensive to his neighbor before witnesses.... During the quadrille,
he moves around amongst the rows of ladies, addressing them with
some trifling or disagreeable remark," and never does he accost them
otherwise than "awkwardly and ill at his ease." At bottom, he distrusts
them and is ill-disposed toward them.[1290] It is because "the
power they have acquired in society seems to him an intolerable
usurpation.--"Never did he utter to a woman a graceful or even a
well-turned compliment, although the effort to find one was often
apparent on his face and in the tone of his voice.... He talks to them
only of their toilet, of which he declares himself a severe and minute
judge, and on which he indulges in not very delicate jests; or again, on
the number of their children, demanding of them in rude language whether
they nurse them themselves; or again, lecturing them on their social
relations."[1291] Hence, "there is not one who does not rejoice when he
moves off."[1292] He would often amuse himself by putting them out of
countenance, scandalizing and bantering them to their faces, driving
them into a corner the same as a colonel worries his canteen women.
"Yes, ladies, you furnish the good people of the Faubourg Saint-Germain
with something to talk about. It is said, Madame A..., that you are
intimate with Monsieur B..., and you Madame C...., with Monsieur D." On
any intrigue chancing to appear in the police reports, "he loses no time
in informing the husband of what is going on."--He is no less indiscreet
in relation to his own affai