Whether he keeps within his function or not, the functionary must be content to do whatever is demanded of him, and readily anticipate every commission.

If his scruples arrest him, if he alleges personal obligations, if he had rather not fail in delicacy, or even in common loyalty, he incurs the risk of offending or losing the favor of the master, which is the case with M.de Remusat,[1267] who is unwilling to become his spy, reporter, and denunciator for the Faubourg Saint-Germain, who does not offer, at Vienna, to pump out of Madame d'Andre the address of her husband so that M.d'Andre may be taken and immediately shot.

Savary, who was the negotiator for his being given up, kept constantly telling M.de Remusat, "You are going against your interest--I must say that I do not comprehend you!" And yet Savary, himself minister of the police, executor of most important services, head manager of the murder of the Duc d'Enghien and of the ambuscade at Bayonne, counterfeiter of Austrian bank-notes for the campaign of 1809 and of Russian banknotes for that of 1812,[1268] Savary ends in getting weary; he is charged with too many dirty jobs; however hardened his conscience it has a tender spot; he discovers at last that he has scruples.

It is with great repugnance that, in February, 1814, he executes the order to have a small infernal machine prepared, moving by clock-work, so as to blow up the Bourbons on their return into France.[1269] "Ah," said he, giving himself a blow on the forehead, "it must be admitted that the Emperor is sometimes hard to serve!" If he exacts so much from the human creature, it is because, in playing the game he has to play, he must absorb everything; in the situation in which he has placed himself, caution is unnecessary.

"Is a statesman," said he, "made to have feeling?
Is he not wholly an eccentric personage, always alone by himself, he on one side and the world on the other ?"[1270] In this duel without truce or mercy, people interest him only whilst they are useful to him; their value depends on what he can make out of them; his sole business is to squeeze them, to extract to the last drop whatever is available in them.
"I find very little satisfaction in useless sentiments," said he again,[1271] "and Berthier is so mediocre that I do not know why I waste my time on him.