drank no wine but Chambertin, and that usually mixed with water. Dinner
lasted in general from fifteen to twenty minutes. All this time the
prefect of the palace had to superintend the affair _en grand_, and to
answer any questions put to him. In the drawing-room a page presented to
the emperor a waiter with a cup and a sugar-stand. Le chef d'office
poured out the coffee; the empress took the cup from the emperor; the
page and the chef d'office retired; the prefect waited till the empress
had poured the coffee into the saucer and given it to Napoleon. After
this the emperor went to his papers again, and the empress played at
cards. Sometimes he would come and talk a little while with the people of
the household in the apartments of the empress, but not often, and he
never staid long. Upon his retiring, the officers on duty attended the
audience _du coucher_, and received their orders for the morrow. This was
the ordinary economy of the emperor's time, when not with the army.

Napoleon read the English newspapers every day in French, and M. de
Bausset says the translation was rigorously exact. One day in January,
1811, the emperor gave some of these extracts to de B., and ordered him
to read them aloud during dinner. The prefect got on pretty well, till he
stumbled at some uncouth epithets, with which he was puzzled how to deal,
especially in the presence of the empress, and a room full of domestics.
He blew his nose, and skipped the words--"No!" said Napoleon, "read out!
you will find many more." "I should be wanting--" "Read, I tell you,"
repeated the emperor, "read every thing!" At last de B. ran upon "tyrant
or despot," which he commuted for "emperor." Napoleon caught the paper
out of his hands, read the real phrase aloud, and then ordered M. de B.
to continue. These translations used to be made by Maret, Duke of
Bassano.

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