nion of the work. The abbe
acknowledged the letter, and praised the performance, but Napoleon never
printed it. Persons who have dined with him at taverns and coffee-houses
when it was convenient to him not to pay his reckoning, have assured me,
that though the youngest and poorest, he always obtained, without
exacting it, a sort of deference or even submission from the rest of the
company. Though never parsimonious, he was at that period of his life
extremely attentive to the details of expense, the price of provisions,
and of other necessary articles, and, in short, to every branch of
domestic economy. The knowledge thus early acquired in such matters, was
useful to him in a more exalted station. He cultivated and even made a
parade of his information in subsequent periods of his career, and thus
sometimes detected and frequently prevented embezzlement in the
administration of public accounts.

HIS ATTENTION TO DETAILS.

Nothing could exceed the order and regularity with which his household
both as consul and emperor was conducted. The great things he
accomplished, and the savings he made, without even the imputation of
avarice or meanness, with the sum comparatively inconsiderable of
fifteen millions of francs a year, are marvelous, and expose his
successors, and indeed all European princes to the reproach of
negligence or incapacity. In this branch of his government, he owed much
to Duroc. It is said, that they often visited the markets of Paris (les
halles) dressed in plain clothes and early in the morning. When any
great accounts were to be submitted to the emperor, Duroc would apprise
him in secret of some of the minutest details. By an adroit allusion to
them or a careless remark on the points upon which he had received such
recent and accurate information, Napoleon contrived to impress his
audience with a notion that the master's eye was every where. For
instance, when the Tuilleries were furnished, the upholsterer's charges,
though not very exorbitant, were suspected by the emperor to be higher
than the usual profit of that trade would have warranted. He suddenly
asked some minister, who was with him, how much the egg at the end of
the bell-rope should cost? "J'ignore," was the answer. "Eh bien! nous
verrons," said he, and then cut off the ivory handle, called for a
valet, and bidding him dress himself in plain and ordinary clothes, and
neither divulge his immediate commission or general employment to any