- Napoléon: Negotiations? Who said anything about negotiations? One negotiates when one doesn't share the same point of view, but you and I already agree about everything, do we not?
- Maréchal Jean Lannes: I was waiting to see you before I go.
- Napoléon: Go? Where do you think you're going without any legs, you damn fool?
- Maréchal Jean Lannes: To hell. That's where people go when they've done what I've done. The slaughter, the horrors. You will know what hell is like too, when you end up alone after you've sent all your friends to their death. They will abandon you. They can't go on, you know. No one dares tell you this, but I do. I am here because of you. And even though I'm dying, it doesn't stop me from loving you. So stop this war. Put an end to this madness.
- Tsar Alexandre I: I hate the way that the English preach to the whole world. If there's one nation that has a right to preach, it is France. Your revolution was a great step toward the freedom of mankind.
- Napoléon: Including freedom for Russia's 10 million serfs?
- Tsar Alexandre I: Sire, you can't reform everything.
- Napoléon: Perhaps not all at once.
- Charles Talleyrand: Now you cast aspersions on my honor?
- Napoléon: Honor? You? You have no honor. You're a scoundrel.
- Charles Talleyrand: Sire, when a point is exaggerated, it becomes meaningless.
- Napoléon: That's what you have just become. Meaningless.
- Napoléon: How do you know what's on his mind? I'm closer to Alexander than you are. He's like a brother to me now.
- Charles Talleyrand: Cain was a brother to Abel, sire.
- Joseph Fouché: All we need is you now, Talleyrand, to complete the party.
- Charles Talleyrand: The conspiracy, you mean? Or, in a word, the treason?
- Joséphine de Beauharnais: I'm not crying. Only little girls cry, and I haven't been a little girl in a long time. Which is why you're getting rid of me. Because I'm an old woman.
- Tsar Alexandre I: I've commissioned this painting for you. I've determined that you should have a souvenir of our discussion in the middle of the Neman, when the emperor of France and the tsar of Russia met to offer one another peace.
- Napoléon: Do you really think France has offered you peace? I would say she has imposed it on you.
- Tsar Alexandre I: The French have such a gift for nuance.
- Napoléon: It's more than a nuance, sire. You know very well that if you had not accepted my conditions, I would have blown your Austrian and Hungarian allies off the face of the earth, and laid waste to your own empire.
- Tsar Alexandre I: And such cruel terminology.
- Napoléon: I'm a conqueror, not a lyricist.
- Charles Talleyrand: Well, Marquis, how is this little mission of ours going? We've prepared the ground successfully, I hope?
- Marquis de Caulaincourt: Well, I've been preparing balls, concerts, banquets, hunting parties, firework displays... The Emperor wants to dazzle the Czar with a display of his power. His Majesty says nothing helps negotiations more, especially with a man as civilized as Alexander.
- Charles Talleyrand: Yes, well, the sovereign of Russia may very well be civilized, but his people are not. In France, of course, it's the other way round.
- Marquis de Caulaincourt: When one is defeated, sire, one has the choice of covering oneself with ashes or furbelows. He has chosen furbelows.
- Hortense: It is not your heir who died. It is my child. You say you loved him, so forget your reign for a moment and weep with me.
- Joséphine de Beauharnais: Weep? Him? He has wallowed in death for so long that it stirs no feelings at all. He knew the stench of corpses before he even smelled a woman.
- Napoléon: What you said was unfair. You have no idea what that war was like, and the hell I've returned from.
- Joséphine de Beauharnais: Hell? With a bit of paradise too. Everyone says that your Polish wife... yes, that's what they call her here... has the face of an angel.
- Joséphine de Beauharnais: Since you're so nice, I'm going to tell you some wonderful news.
- Napoléon: Oh, let me guess. The dressmaker has run out of ribbons and silk, and you're going to make do with the 6,000 dresses you already own.
- Charles IV d'Espagne: What a pig you are! Did you hear that, sire? Stuffing himself with food is not enough for my son. He intends to gobble up my kingdom!
- Joséphine de Beauharnais: You certainly have changed. After doing all you could to destroy the monarchies of Europe, now you're going to bed a crown.
- Napoléon: Caulaincourt is very efficient. Like all the men who serve me. Most of them were mere nobodies before. I seem to have a gift for helping people raise themselves.
- Marie-Louise d'Autriche: Well, I started off rather highly placed. Do you think you can raise me even higher?
- Napoléon: Yes. I can raise you to happiness.
- Joséphine de Beauharnais: Napoleon, be sensible. Watching your son grow up will give you more happiness than an empire.
- Napoléon: They are playing with us, Talleyrand. We've been here an entire week, and all we've done is amuse ourselves, if you can call listening to that Paganini character, amusement.