A few days after my return to Paris their Majesties were present at the opera where ‘Jerusalem Delivered’ was presented.  I occupied a box which Count de Remusat had the kindness to lend me for that evening (he was first chamberlain of the Emperor, and superintendent of theaters), and witnessed the reception given the Emperor and Empress.  Never have I seen more enthusiasm displayed, and I must avow that the transition seemed to me most sudden from the recent passage of the Beresina to those truly magical scenes.  It was on Sunday, and I left the theater a little before the close in order to reach the palace before the Emperor’s return.  I was there in time to undress him, and I well remember that his Majesty spoke to me that evening of the quarrel between Talma and Geoffroy which had occurred a few days before his arrival.  The Emperor, although he had a high opinion of Talma, thought him completely in the wrong, and repeated several times, “A man of his age!  A man of his age! that is inexcusable.  Zounds!” added he, smiling, “do not people speak evil of me also?  Have I not also critics who do not spare me?  He should not be more sensitive than I?” This affair, however, had no disagreeable result for Talma; for the Emperor was much attached to him, and overwhelmed him with pensions and presents.

Talma in this respect was among the very privileged few; for giving presents was not in his Majesty’s role, especially to those in his private service.  It was then near the 1st of January; but we built no air castles at this period, for the Emperor never made gifts.  We knew that we could not expect any emoluments; though I, especially, could exercise no economy, for the Emperor required that my toilet should always be extremely elegant.  It was something really extraordinary to see the master of half of Europe not disdaining to occupy himself with the toilet of his valet de chambre; even going so far that when he saw me in a new coat which pleased him he never failed to compliment me on it, adding, “You are very handsome, Monsieur Constant.”

Even on the occasion of the marriage of the Emperor and Marie Louise, and that of the birth of the King of Rome, those composing the private service of his Majesty received no present, and the Emperor thought the expenses of these ceremonies too great.  On one occasion, however, but not in consequence of any unusual circumstance, the Emperor said to me one morning as I finished dressing him, “Constant, go to M. Meneval; I have given him orders to allow you eighteen hundred livres of income.”  Now, it happened that the funds had gone up in the interval between the order and its execution; and instead of receiving eighteen hundred livres of rent, I received only seventeen, which I sold a short time after, and with the product of this sale bought a modest piece of property in the forest of Fontainebleau.

Sometimes the Emperor made presents to the princes and princesses of his family, of which I was nearly always the bearer; and I can assert that with two or three rare exceptions this duty was perfectly gratuitous, a circumstance which I recall here simply as a recollection.  Queen Hortense and Prince Eugene were never included, according to my recollection, in the distribution of Imperial gifts, and the Princess Pauline was most often favored.