Parisian gaiety often found vent in lampoons against the Emperor; and much satire at his expense might with safety be indulged in among a crowd, provided it were seasoned with wit.

The people seemed not to fear Napoleon, as he was feared in Germany: the old revolutionary party was still active and might easily become far more dangerous than the royalist coteries of the Boulevard St.Germain.For the rest, they were all so accustomed to political change that they looked on his government as provisional, and put up with him only as long as the army triumphed abroad and he could make his power felt at home.

Such was the impression of Paris gained by Varnhagen von Ense.

Public opinion in the provinces seems to have been more favourable to Napoleon; and, on the whole, pride in the army and in the vigorous administration which that nation loves, above all, hatred of England and the hope of wresting from her the world's empire, led the French silently to endure rigorous press laws, increased taxes, war prices, licences, and chicory.
For Germans the hardships were much greater and the alleviations far less.

They had no deep interest in Malta or in the dominion of the seas; and political economy was then only beginning to dawn on the Teutonic mind.