under Louis XVI., a high functionary under the Empire, an important
political personage under the restoration and the July monarchy, is
probably the best informed and most judicious of eye-witnesses during
the first half of our century.): "Their vices and virtues surpass
ordinary proportions and have a physiognomy of their own. But what
especially distinguishes them is a stubborn will, and inflexible
resolution. . . . All possessed the instinct of their greatness."
They readily accepted "the highest positions; they even got to
believing that their elevation was inevitable. . . . Nothing in
the incredible good fortune of Joseph astonished him; often in
January, 1814, I heard him say over and over again that if his brother
had not meddled with his affairs after the second entry into Madrid,
he would still be on the throne of Spain. As to determined obstinacy
we have only to refer to the resignation of Louis, the retirement of
Lucien, and the resistances of Fesch; they alone could stem the will
of Napoleon and sometimes break a lance with him. -Passion,
sensuality, the habit of considering themselves outside of rules, and
self-confidence combined with talent, super abound among the women, as
in the fifteenth century. Elisa, in Tuscany, had a vigorous brain,
was high spirited and a genuine sovereign, notwithstanding the
disorders of her private life, in which even appearances were not
sufficiently maintained." Caroline at Naples, "without being more
scrupulous than her sisters," better observed the proprieties; none of
the others so much resembled the Emperor; "with her, all tastes
succumbed to ambition"; it was she who advised and prevailed upon her
husband, Murat, to desert Napoleon in 1814. As to Pauline, the most
beautiful woman of her epoch, "no wife, since that of the Emperor
Claude, surpassed her in the use she dared make of her charms; nothing
could stop her, not even a malady attributed to the strain of this
life-style and for which we have so often seen her borne in a litter."