thinking to please
him, ventured to place over his mantel-piece some
insulting caricatures of the Bourbons: these he
disdainfully threw into the fire, and severely
enjoined the valet, never in future to be guilty of
such an impertinence.]

[Footnote 78:

"If we sometimes play the fool,
Reason should resume her rule."]

The Emperor entered his closet habitually before six in the morning,
and seldom quitted it till night.

Impatience and vivacity are almost always incompatible with order and
precision. Napoleon, destined to be like no other person, added to the
fire of genius the methodical habits of cold and little minds. For the
most part, he took care to arrange his numerous papers himself. Each
of them had its settled place. Here was found whatever related to the
war department: there, the budgets, the daily statements of the
treasury and finances: farther on, the reports of the police, his
secret correspondence with his private agents, &c. He carefully
returned every thing to its place, after having used it: compared with
him the most methodical clerk would have been but a bungler.

His first business was to read his correspondence, and the despatches
that had arrived in the night. He put aside the interesting letters,
and threw the rest on the floor: this he called his _answered_.

He afterwards examined the copies of letters opened at the post
office, and burnt them immediately. It seemed, as if he wished to
annihilate all traces of the abuse of power, of which he had been
guilty.

He finished by casting an eye over the newspapers. Sometimes he said,
"That's a good article; whose is it?" He must know every thing.

These several readings ended, he set to work; and it may be said
without exaggeration, that he was then as extraordinary, as
incomparable, as at the head of his armies.

As he would entrust to nobody the supreme care of the government, he
saw every thing himself; and it is easy to conceive, on what a
multiplicity of objects he had to fix his eyes. Independently of his
ministers, the Duke of Bassano, the commandant of the first division
of Paris, the prefect of the police, the inspector general of the
gendarmerie, the major-general of guards, the grand marshal of the
palace, the great officers of the crown, the aides-de-camp, and the
orderly off