this time, the Emperor has thought aloud, is taken by surprise;
"ordinarily, he manifests approbation only by his silence." - When M.
de Rémusat, prefect of the palace, has arranged "one of those
magnificent fêtes in which all the arts minister to his enjoyment,"
economically, correctly, with splendor and success, his wife never
asks her husband[84] if the Emperor is satisfied, but whether he has
scolded more or less.

"His leading general principle, which he applies in every way, in
great things as well as in small ones, is that a man's zeal depends
upon his anxiety."

How insupportable the constraint he exercises, with what crushing
weight his absolutism bears down on the most tried devotion and on the
most pliable characters, with what excess he tramples on and wounds
the best dispositions, up to what point he represses and stifles the
respiration of the human being, he knows as well as anybody. He was
heard to say,

"The lucky man is he who hides away from me in the depths of some
province."

And, another day, having asked M. de Ségur what people would say of
him after his death, the latter enlarged on the regrets which would be
universally expressed. "Not at all," replied the Emperor; and then,
drawing in his breath in a significant manner indicative of universal
relief, he replied,

"They'll say, 'Whew!'"[85]