Imperious . It is said about man, character, gesture and tone. The imperious man wishes to command everywhere he is; that is in his character; he has a haughty and proud tone, and insolent gesture. Imperious men are impertinent with their equals, or base with their superiors; impertinent, if they stay in their character; base, if they come down from it. If circumstances lend themselves to the imperious man, and carry him to the highest positions in society, he would be a despot. He is a born tyrant, and does not think of hiding it. If he meets a steadfast man, he is surprised; he looks at him at first like a slave who does not recognize his master. There are imperious friends; sooner or later one pulls away from them. There are few benefactors who, having enough delicacy not to be so, make the onerous acknowledgement, and in the long run are ingrates. One is sometimes freed from the imperious man by the favors obtained from him. He constrains his character, for fear of losing the credit for his beneficence. Love is an imperious passion, to which everything is sacrificed. And in fact, what is there to compare to a woman, to a beautiful woman, to the pleasure of having her, to the ecstasy in her embrace, to the end that it brings us, to the goal that is fulfilled in it, and to the effect that follows them?

Women are imperious ; they seem to compensate for their natural weakness by the excessive exercise of a precarious and fleeting authority. Imperious men with women are not ones who know them the least; those bores seem to have been made to avenge for the women the good men whom they dominate, or whom they betray.