t that he is a most
amiable sovereign." She is smitten with the feeling of gratitude, and
says it is so sweet that she really regards it as another favour. She
wishes her husband could "often secure some of those comforting smiles
from the master," and tells him he is "no fool to be fond of those
smiles," and promises to congratulate him if he secures some.

She asks God to watch over him (such will always be her prayer) when
he is fighting and conquering. Her heart is grieved when he is at a
great distance from them. She eulogises his great qualities to her
son, and advises him "to study all that she was able to tell him of
the Emperor, and write about it when he grew up," and the boy
exclaimed, "Mother, what you have told me sounds like one of
Plutarch's lives!"

But there comes a time when Napoleon sees that the price he has to pay
for adulation is too high, for, like most over-pampered people, Madame
de Remusat seems to have got the idea of equality badly into her head.
She became waspish, exacting, claiming more than her share of
emoluments, seeking for attentions which her "amiable sovereign" saw
in the fitness of things it would be folly to bestow. She mistook
wholesome justice for tyranny, defied discipline, and not only
connived at treason, but prayed for the extinction of him against whom
it was directed. Disaster overtook him, he fell, and in her delirium
of malice and joy she bethought it an opportune moment to write what
are known as her memoirs, refuting therein all her former eulogies and
opinions so vividly told in the "Letters of Madame de Remusat." Now
that adversity so terrible overshadows the matchless hero of the
letters, she throws every scruple aside, and warms to her task in
writing unstinted, gross, and manifest libels. Contrast with the
"letters" these quotations from the memoirs. She avows that "nothing
is so base as his soul. It is closed against all generous impulses; he
never could admire a noble action." "He possesses an innate depravity
of nature, and has a special taste for evil." "His absence brought
solace, and made people breathe freely." "He is devoid of every kind
of personal courage, and generous impulses are foreign to him." "He
put a feeling of restraint into everybody that approached him." "He
was feared everywhere." "He delighted to excite fear." "He did not
like to make people comfortable." "He was afraid of the least
familiarity." This latter grievance, combined of course w