d for
the first time by a prefect. He alighted at the prefect's house. On
the mantel-piece of the first saloon were the busts of the Empress,
and of her son; and in the next was a whole-length portrait of
Napoleon, in his imperial robes: it might have been supposed, that the
reign of the Emperor had never been interrupted.

Napoleon immediately received the congratulations of all the
authorities, and of the tribunals. These congratulations began to be
no longer a mark of attachment in our eyes, but the fulfilment of a
duty. After having discoursed with them on the grand interests of the
state, the Emperor, whose good humour was inexhaustible, began to
joke about the court of Louis XVIII. "His court," said he, "has the
air of that of King Dagobert: we see nothing in it but antiques; the
women are old and frightfully ugly; there were no pretty women in it
but mine, and those were so ill-treated, that they were obliged to
desert it. All those people are made up of nothing but haughtiness and
pride: I have been reproached with being proud; I was so to strangers;
but never did any one see me suffer my chancellor to set one knee to
the ground to receive my orders, or oblige my prefects and mayors to
wait at table on my courtiers and dowagers[63]. They say, that the men
about the court are little better than the women; and that, to
distinguish them from my generals, whom I had covered with gold lace,
they are dressed like beggars. My court, it is true, was superb: I was
fond of magnificence; not for myself, a plain soldier's coat was
sufficient for me; I was fond of it, because it encourages our
manufactures: without magnificence there is no industry. I abolished
at Lyons all that parchment nobility; it was never sensible of what it
owed me: it was I that exalted it, by making counts and barons of my
best generals. Nobility is a chimera; men are too enlightened to
believe, that some among them are noble, others not: they all spring
from the same stock; the only distinction is that of talents, and of
services rendered the state: our laws know no others."

[Footnote 63: He alluded to the installation of the
council of state, where the chancellor actually
dropped on one knee, to ask and receive the King's
orders.

And to the city entertainment, where the prefect,
his wife, and the municipal body, waited at table