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Napoleon's Awkwardness In The Drawing Room

Napoleon's Awkwardness In The Drawing Room image
Parent Issue
Day
26
Month
March
Year
1880
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

From Prince MctterniBh's Memoire. Simple and even easy as he was n private life, lie showed hiuiself to little advantage in the great world. It is difficult to imagine aDything more awkward than Napoleons manner in a drawing room. The pains which he took to correct the faults of his mture and oducation only served to make his deficiencies more evident. I am satiified that he would bave made great sacrifiees to add to his height and pive dignity to his appearance which became more common in proportion as his embonpoint increased. He walked by preference on tiptoe. His costumes were ,-tmiied to fnrm a contrast by comparison with the circle which snrroundea him, oither by their extreme simplicity or their extreme magnificence. It is certain that he made Taima come to teach him particular attitudes. He showed much favor to this actor, and his affection was greatly founded on tfle likeness which really existed between them. He liked very much to see TJalma on the stage ; it might be said, in fact, that he saw himself reproduced. Out of his mouth there never came one graceful or even a well turned speech to a wotnan, although the effort to make one was often pxprefwd on his face and in the sound of his voice. He spoke to ladies only of' their dress, of which he declared himself a severe jude, or perhaps of the number of their children, and one of his usual questions was if' they had nursed their children themselves - a question which he commonly made in terms feldom uü in Kood snctety. He somctimes tned to inflict upon them questions on the private relations of society, which gave to his conversatkins more the charscter of misplaced admonitions - misplaced, at least, as to the choice of place and manner - than ihat of polite drawing-room conversations. This want of savinr vivre more than once exposed him to repartees which he was not able to return.