(Words of Napoleon) "I took a few of the old court into my household.

They remained two years without speaking to me and six months without seeing me...

I don't like them--they are no good for anything--their conversation is disagreeable to me."] [Footnote 3327: Napoleon, "Memoires."] [Footnote 3328: Roederer, "Memoires."] [Footnote 3329: Taine uses the French expression "esprit" which might both mean spirit, wit, mind or sense.] [Footnote 3330: Roederer, "Memoires, "III., 281.

"Men, under his government, who had hitherto been considered incapable are made useful; men hitherto considered distinguished found themselves mixed in with the crowd; men hitherto regarded as the pillars of the State found themselves useless ...

An ass or a knave need never be ambitious to approach Bonaparte, they will make nothing out of him."] [Footnote 3331: Fievee, "Correspondance," III., 33 .-- Roederer, III., 381.] [Footnote 3332: Beugnot, "Memoires," II., 372.] [Footnote 3333: Lefebvre, a former sergeant in the French guards, who became marshal of the empire and Duc de Dantzig, with 150,000 francs a year, received the visit of a comrade who, instead of having mounted the ladder as he had done, had remained at the bottom of it.