XVIII.
HIS COURT.
I turn now to another and a different side of his character. It is part of his intense love of power that everybody about him must be perfectly dependent on him. "He considered himself," said an Italian diplomatist who had studied him for many years, "an isolated being in the world, made to govern and direct all minds as he pleased." By-and-by, I shall describe how he carried out this in the case of men; for the moment, I shall deal with the exercise of this passion in reference to women.
There had been despots in France before Napoleon; for instance, the sway of Louis XIV. was absolute; but then in him, as in most monarchs, there were two sides. As monarch and man of business, he was one thing; but when he was engaged in social duties, he was head of his house; "he welcomed visitors, entertained his guests, and that his guests should not be automatons, he tried to put them at their ease." He did not, above all things, "persistently, and from morning to night, maintain a despotic attitude;" quite the reverse:
"Polite to everybody, always affable with men and sometimes gracious, always courteous with women, and sometimes gallant, carefully avoiding
