He is special in all branches of civil or military activity, and even in technical detail; his memory for facts, actions, antecedence and circumstances, is prodigious; his discernment, his critical analysis, his calculating insight into the resources and shortcomings of a mind or of a soul, his faculty for gauging men, is extraordinary; through constant verifications and rectifications his internal repertory, his biographical and moral dictionary, is kept daily posted; his attention never flags; he works eighteen hours a day; his personal intervention and his hand are visible even in the appointment of subordinates.

"Every man called to take part in affairs was selected by him;"[3331] it is through him that they retain their place; he controls their promotion and by sponsors whom he knows.

"A minister could not have dismissed a functionary without consulting the emperor, while the ministers could all change without bringing about two secondary changes throughout the empire.

A minister did not appoint even a second-class clerk without presenting a list of several candidates to the emperor and, opposite to it, the name of the person recommending him." All, even at a distance, felt that the master's eyes were on them.

"I worked," says Beugnot,[3332] "from night to morning, with singular ardor; I astonished the natives of the country who did not know that the emperor exercised over his servitors, however far from him they might be, the miracle of the real presence.