Its powers are vested in a diet representing the component members of the confederacy; in the emperor, who is the executive magistrate, with a negative on the decrees of the diet; and in the imperial chamber and the aulic council, two judiciary tribunals having supreme jurisdiction in controversies which concern the empire, or which happen among its members.
The members of the diet, as such, are subject in all cases to be judged by the emperor and diet, and in their private capacities by the aulic council and imperial chamber.
For eight hours the broad brow of the Sheik of the
Imperial Chibouk was corrugated with evidences of deep thought: he was calculating the chances of war.
"C'est un homme qui n'a pas..." the gentleman of the bedchamber was beginning, but he stopped to make room, bowing, for a member of the Imperial family to pass.
Thus people talked incessantly of Alexey Alexandrovitch, finding fault with him and laughing at him, while he, blocking up the way of the member of the Imperial Council he had captured, was explaining to him point by point his new financial project, never interrupting his discourse for an instant for fear he should escape.
"She who rode in the
imperial chariot, in the excursions on sunny days.
'For see, my Lords and Ladies and your Imperial Majesty, with the real Nightingale one can never tell what will come out, but all is known about the artificial bird!
The artificial bird was put on silken cushions by the Emperor's bed, all the presents which it received, gold and precious stones, lay round it, and it was given the title of Imperial Night-singer, First from the left.
We spent half an hour idling through the palace, admiring the cosy apartments and the rich but eminently home-like appointments of the place, and then the
Imperial family bade our party a kind good-bye, and proceeded to count the spoons.
Yet my
imperial power and dignity had been a very real thing during my brief reign.
As the news of my arrival spread through the kingdom, it brought prodigious numbers of rich, idle, and curious people to see me; so that the villages were almost emptied; and great neglect of tillage and household affairs must have ensued, if his
imperial majesty had not provided, by several proclamations and orders of state, against this inconveniency.
The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have
imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim.
All else being equal in war between the troops of a republic and an empire, could not this exhilarated mental state, amounting almost to hysteria on the part of the
imperial troops, weigh heavily against the soldiers of a president?
The following morning, at eleven o'clock, she presented herself at the offices of the
Imperial and West African Rubber Company.
"I bet fifty
imperials"- he spoke French that the Englishman might understand him, but he did, not speak it very well- "I bet fifty
imperials...
