One thing which gave Bonaparte great pleasure when in the country was to see a tall, slender woman, dressed in white, walking beneath an alley of shaded trees.  He detested coloured dresses, and especially dark ones.  To fat women he had an invincible antipathy, and he could not endure the sight of a pregnant woman; it therefore rarely happened that a female in that situation was invited to his parties.  He possessed every requisite for being what is called in society an agreeable man, except the will to be so.  His manner was imposing rather than pleasing, and those who did not know him well experienced in his presence an involuntary feeling of awe.  In the drawing-room, where Josephine did the honours with so much grace and affability, all was gaiety and ease, and no one felt the presence of a superior; but on Bonaparte’s entrance all was changed, and every eye was directed towards him, to read his humour in his countenance, whether he intended to be silent or talkative, dull or cheerful.

He often talked a great deal, and sometimes a little too much; but no one could tell a story in a more agreeable and interesting way.  His conversation rarely turned on gay or humorous subjects, and never on trivial matters.  He was so fond of argument that in the warmth of discussion it was easy to draw from him secrets which he was most anxious to conceal.  Sometimes, in a small circle, he would amuse himself by relating stories of presentiments and apparitions.  For this he always chose the twilight of evening, and he would prepare his hearers for what was coming by some solemn remark.  On one occasion of this kind he said, in a very grave tone of voice, “When death strikes a person whom we love, and who is distant from us, a foreboding almost always denotes the event, and the dying person appears to us at the moment of his dissolution.”  He then immediately related the following anecdote:  “A gentleman of the Court of Louis xiv. was in the gallery of Versailles at the time that the King was reading to his courtiers the bulletin of the battle of Friedlingen gained by Villars.  Suddenly the gentleman saw, at the farther end of the gallery, the ghost of his son, who served under Villars.  He exclaimed, ‘My son is no more!’ and next moment the King named him among the dead.”

When travelling Bonaparte was particularly talkative.  In the warmth of his conversation, which was always characterised by original and interesting idea, he sometimes dropped hints of his future views, or, at least, he said things which were calculated to disclose what he wished to conceal.  I took the liberty of mentioning to him this indiscretion, and far from being offended, he acknowledged his mistake, adding that he was not aware he had gone so far.  He frankly avowed this want of caution when at St. Helena.

When in good humour his usual tokens of kindness consisted in a little rap on the head or a slight pinch of the ear.  In his most friendly conversations with those whom he admitted into his intimacy he would say, “You are a fool”—­“a simpleton”—­“a ninny”—­“a blockhead.”  These, and a few other words of like import, enabled him to vary his catalogue of compliments; but he never employed them angrily, and the tone in which they were uttered sufficiently indicated that they were meant in kindness.