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Updated: July 29, 2025
A serious crisis, as will be seen, and one that caused his cheeks to burn with fever as he studied the expression of his features and his courtier-like smiles in the bevelled mirrors of his coupé, striving to prepare an adroit entry into the presence, one of his masterstrokes of amiable impudence which had served him so well with Ahmed and thus far with the French statesman, the whole accompanied by a rapid beating of the heart and the shivering sensation between the shoulders which precedes decisive steps, even when taken in a carriage with gilded panels.
Consequently, "he carefully cultivates all the bad passions.... he is glad to find the bad side in a man, so as to get him in his power"; the thirst for money in Savary, the Jacobin defects of Fouche, the vanity and sensuality of Cambaceres, the careless cynicism and "the easy immorality" of Talleyrand, the "dry bluntness" of Duroc, the courtier-like insipidity of Maret, "the silliness" of Berthier; he brings this out, diverts himself with it, and profits by it.
Dauriat was unwontedly courtier-like and complimentary. He was afraid of Lucien, and therefore he asked him to a great dinner which he was giving to a party of journalists towards the end of the week, and Coralie was included in the invitation.
It rarely happened that any uneasiness was excited on his account, whenever a question of elegance or taste was under discussion; and De Guiche's defeat was accordingly attributed by the greater number present to his courtier-like tact and ability.
Revolutionary feelings were not wholly dead, but they now vented themselves merely in gibes. On the night before the coronation the walls of Paris were adorned with posters announcing: The last Representation of the French Revolution for the Benefit of a poor Corsican Family. And after the event there were inquiries why the new throne had no glands d'or; the answer suggested because it was sanglant. Beyond these quips and jests the Jacobins and royalists did not go. When the phrase your subjects was publicly assigned to the Corps Législatif by its courtier-like president, Fontanes, there was a flutter of wrath among those who had hoped that the new Empire was to be republican. But it quickly passed away; and no Frenchman, except perhaps Carnot, made so manly a protest as the man of genius at Vienna, who had composed the "Sinfonia Eroïca," and with grand republican simplicity inscribed it, "Beethoven
It would seem to have been difficult to quarrel with one who was always so courtier-like in manner, so gentle and suave and forbearing as was Lawrence. But it is possible these very characteristics were matters of offence to Harlow. He could not give credit for ability to a man who was so calm and elegant and placid amidst all the entrancements of his profession.
I listened, almost enviously, to this light-hearted profligate's babble, as we sat by my rude fireside, I, sombre man of science and sorrow, he, smiling child of idleness and pleasure, so much one of Nature's courtier-like nobles, that there, as he smoked his villanous pipe, in his dust-soiled shabby garments, and with his ruffianly revolver stuck into his belt, I would defy the daintiest Aristarch who ever presided as critic over the holiday world not to have said, "There smiles the genius beyond my laws, the born darling of the Graces, who in every circumstance, in every age, like Aristippus, would have socially charmed; would have been welcome to the orgies of a Caesar or a Clodius, to the boudoirs of a Montespan or a Pompadour; have lounged through the Mulberry Gardens with a Rochester and a Buckingham, or smiled from the death-cart, with a Richelieu and a Lauzun, a gentleman's disdain of a mob!"
Nor was his courtier-like calculation one of these rash speculations which promise splendid results on paper, and are ruinous in effect. He was to quote the wittiest and most successful of our diplomates one of the faithful five hundred who shared the exile of the Court at Ghent, and one of the fifty thousand who returned with it.
With still less of courtier-like complaisance, Hyde urged that, however good the appointment might have been "when the Duke was full of reputation, and the King was more feared and reverenced than presumed upon," it was otherwise now when the Duke had withdrawn from business and "let himself fall to familiarities with all degrees of men," and when the King had been exposed to all manner of importunities, had received all men's addresses and made promises without deliberation, had become so desirous to satisfy all men that he was irresolute in all things.
I resolved, therefore, to hazard a middle term; to try and introduce myself at the top of the right arm of the chair, a little sideways, so as to take the place of neither, entirely; but, nevertheless, to drive them out, and to cover this with an air of ignorance and of simplicity; and, at the same time, of eagerness, of joy, of curiosity, of courtier-like desire to speak to the King as much as possible: and all this I exactly executed, in appearance stupidly, and in reality very successfully!
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