frigid Court . . . more dismal than dignified; every countenance wearing an expression of uneasiness . . . a silence both dull and constrained.' At Fontainebleau, 'amidst splendours and pleasures,' there is no real enjoyment or satisfaction, not even to himself. 'I pity you,' said M. de Talleyrand to M. de Rémusat; 'you have to amuse the unamuseable.' At the theatre he is abstracted or yawns. Applause is interdicted; 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 he never wanted anybody else to be so. He was afraid of the slightest approach to familiarity, and inspired every one with the fear of saying something offensive of his neighbour before witnesses. . . . During the quadrille he moves around amongst the row of ladies, addressing them with trifling or disagreeable remarks,' and never does he accost them otherwise than 'awkwardly and as if ill at ease.' At bottom he distrusts, and is ill-disposed towards them. It is because 'the power they have acquired in society seems to him an intolerable usurpation.'"
And if any picture could be more odious than this, here is another more odious still:
"Never did he utter to a woman a graceful or even a well-turned compliment, although the effort
