Footnote 74: "In all ages the poor have suffered for the faults of the great."[(Back to main text)]
Footnote 75: He constantly refused the emoluments and allowances of considerable offices, attached to the rank of major-general of the guards. The appointments of a lieutenant-general and aide-de-camp appeared to him, to pay him more than his services deserved.[(Back to main text)]
Footnote 76: I cannot avoid remarking the beauty of this passage.[(Back to main text)]
Footnote 77: The king departed with such suddenness, that he had not time to carry away his private papers. In his writing table was found his family port-folio. It contained a great number of letters from Madame the Duchess of Angoulême, and from some of the princes. Napoleon cast his eye over several of them, and gave me the port-folio, with orders, that it should be scrupulously preserved. Napoleon would have respect paid to royal majesty, and to every thing that pertained to the person of kings.
The king habitually used a small table, that he had brought from Hartwell. Napoleon took pleasure in writing on it for a few hours: he afterwards ordered it to be removed, and the greatest care to be taken of it.
The Merlin's chair used by the king, not being suited to Napoleon, whose limbs and health were in full strength and vigour, was banished to the back closet. Some person being found sitting in it, when the Emperor passed through unexpectedly, he gave him an angry look, and the chair was removed.
One of his valets de chambre, 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.[(Back to main text)]
"If we sometimes play the fool,
Reason should resume her rule."[(Back to main text)]
Footnote 79: I have been assured, that Napoleon in his youth composed a history of Paoli, and of the war of liberty: may he realize the design of writing the history of his own reign, for the instruction of future ages! This reign is so fertile in extraordinary events, and unforeseen catastrophes, and displays to our view such numerous examples of human vicissitudes, that its history may supply the place of all others, and become itself alone a lesson for kings and people.[(Back to main text)]