“When I was about to marry Marie Louise, her father the Emperor sent me a box of papers intended to prove that I was descended from the Dukes of Florence.  I burst out laughing, and said to Metternich, ’Do you suppose I am going to waste my time over such foolishness?  Suppose it were true, what good would it do me?  The Dukes of Florence were inferior in rank to the Emperors of Germany.  I will not place myself beneath my father-in-law.  I think that as I am, I am as good as he.  My nobility dates from Monte Notte.  Return him these papers.’  Metternich was very much amused.”

Francis of Austria must have felt confounded at the rebuke of his unceremonious relative, who was always the man of stern reality—­too big to be dazzled by mouldy records of kingly blood.  Neither did pomp or ceremony attract him, except in so far as it might serve the purpose of making an impression on others.  Bourrienne, a shameless predatory traitor, has said in his memoirs that when the seat of government was removed from the Luxembourg to the Tuileries, the First Consul said to him, “You are very lucky; you are not obliged to make a spectacle of yourself.  I have to go about with a cortege; it bores me, but it appeals to the eye of the people.”

Roederer in his memoirs relates pretty much the same thing, only that it bears on the question of title, and presumably the researches for confirmation of his royal descent.

Here again, his strong practical view of things, and his utter indifference to grandeur or genealogical distinction, are shown.  He says:  “How can anyone pretend that empty names, titles given for the sake of a political system, can change in the smallest degree one’s relations with one’s friends and associates?  I am called Sire, or Imperial Majesty, without anyone in my household believing or thinking that I am a different man in consequence.  All those titles form part of a system, and therefore they are necessary.”  He always ends his ebullitions of convincing wisdom by making it clear precisely where he stands.

The writer might quote pages of eulogies of him from the most eminent men of every nationality.  There is no trustworthy evidence that he ever sought the flattery that was lavished on him; indeed, he seems to have been alternately in the mood for ignoring or making fun of it.  On one occasion he writes to King Joseph, “I have never sought the applause of Parisians; I am not an operatic monarch."[15]

Seguier says:—­

“Napoleon is above human history.  He belongs to heroic periods and is beyond admiration."[16]