In his intercourse with society at this period, he was, for the most part, remarkable for the cold reserve of his manners.  He had the appearance of one too much occupied with serious designs, to be able to relax at will into the easy play of ordinary conversation.  If his eye was on every man, he well knew that every man’s eye was upon him; nor, perhaps, could he have chosen a better method (had that been his sole object) for prolonging and strengthening the impression his greatness was calculated to create, than this very exhibition of indifference.  He did not suffer his person to be familiarised out of reverence.  When he did appear, it was not the ball or bon mot of the evening before, that he recalled:—­he was still, wherever he went, the Buonaparte of Lodi, and Arcola, and Rivoli.  His military bluntness disdained to disguise itself amidst those circles where a meaner parvenu would have been most ambitious to shine.  The celebrated daughter of Necker made many efforts to catch his fancy and enlist him among the votaries of her wit, which then gave law in Paris.  “Whom,” said she, half wearied with his chillness, “do you consider as the greatest of women?” “Her, madam,” he answered, “who has borne the greatest number of children.”  From this hour he had Madame de Stael for his enemy; and yet, such are the inconsistencies of human nature, no man was more sensitive than he to the assaults of a species of enemy whom he thus scorned to conciliate.  Throughout his Italian campaigns—­as consul—­as emperor—­and down to the last hour of the exile which terminated his life—­Buonaparte suffered himself to be annoyed by sarcasms and pamphlets as keenly and constantly as if he had been a poetaster.

The haughtiness, for such it was considered, of his behaviour in the society of the capital, was of a piece with what he had already manifested in the camp.  In the course of his first campaigns, his officers, even of the highest rank, became sensible, by degrees, to a total change of demeanour.  An old acquaintance of the Toulon period, joining the army, was about to throw himself into the general’s arms with the warmth of the former familiarity.  Napoleon’s cold eye checked him; and he perceived in a moment how he had altered with his elevation.  He had always, on the other hand, affected much familiarity with the common soldiery.  He disdained not on occasion to share the ration or to taste the flask of a sentinel; and the French private, often as intelligent as those whom fortune has placed above him, used to address the great general with even more frankness than his own captain.  Napoleon, in one of his Italian despatches, mentions to the Directory the pleasure which he often derived from the conversation of the men:  “But yesterday,” says he, “a common trooper addressed me as I was riding, and told me he thought he could suggest the movement which ought to be adopted.  I listened to him, and heard him detail some operations on which I had actually resolved but a little before.”  It has been noticed (perhaps by over-nice speculators) as a part of the same system, that Napoleon, on his return to Paris, continued to employ the same tradespeople, however inferior in their several crafts, who had served him in the days of his obscurity.[21]