The amiable Prince Eugene, so obedient and so loyal,[1277] is thus warned: "If you want orders or advice from His Majesty in the alteration of the ceiling of your room you should wait till you get them; were Milan burning and you asked orders for putting out the fire, you should let Milan burn until you got them...

His Majesty is displeased, and very much displeased, with you; you must never attempt to do his work.

Never does he like this, and he will never forgive it." This enables us to judge of his tone with subalterns.

The French battalions are refused admission into certain places in Holland:[1278] "Announce to the King of Holland, that if his ministers have acted on their own responsibility, I will have them arrested and all their heads cut off." He says to M.de Segur, member of the Academy commission which had just approved M.de Chateaubriand's discourse:[1279] "You, and M.de Fontaines, as state councillor and grand master, I ought to put in Vincennes....

Tell the second class of the Institute that I will have no political subjects treated at its meetings.....If it disobeys, I will break it up like a bad club.
Even when not angry or scolding,[1280] when the claws are drawn in, one feels the clutch.