ou asked orders for putting out the fire, you should let
Milan burn until you got them... His Majesty is displeased, and very
much displeased, with you; you must never attempt to do his work. Never
does he like this, and he will never forgive it."

This enables us to judge of his tone with subalterns. The French
battalions are refused admission into certain places in Holland:[1278]

"Announce to the King of Holland, that if his ministers have acted on
their own responsibility, I will have them arrested and all their heads
cut off."

He says to M. de Segur, member of the Academy commission which had just
approved M. de Chateaubriand's discourse:[1279]

"You, and M. de Fontaines, as state councillor and grand master, I ought
to put in Vincennes.... Tell the second class of the Institute that
I will have no political subjects treated at its meetings.....If it
disobeys, I will break it up like a bad club.

Even when not angry or scolding,[1280] when the claws are drawn in,
one feels the clutch. He says to Beugnot, whom he has just berated,
scandalously and unjustly,--conscious of having done him injustice and
with a view to produce an effect on the bystanders,--

"Well, you great imbecile, you have got back your brains?"

On this, Beugnot, tall as a drum-major, bows very low, while the smaller
man, raising his hand, seizes him by the ear, "a heady mark of favor,"
says Beugnot, a sign of familiarity and of returning good humor. And
better yet, the master deigns to lecture Beugnot on his personal tastes,
on his regrets, on his wish to return to France: What would he like? To
be his minister in Paris? "Judging by what he saw of me the other day I
should not be there very long; I might die of worry before the end
of the month." He has already killed Portalis, Cretet, and almost
Treilhard, even though he had led a hard life: he could no longer
urinate, nor the others either. The same thing would have happened to
Beignot, if not worse....

"Stay here.... after which you will be old, or rather we all shall be
old, and I will send you to the Senate to drivel at your ease."

Evidently,[1281] the nearer one is to his person the more disagreeable
life becomes.[1282] "Admirably served, promptly obeyed to the minute, he
still delights in keeping everybody around him in terror concerning the
details of all that goes on in his palace." Has any difficult task been
accomplished? He expresses no thanks, never or scarcely ever praise