“What is a throne but a stool covered in velvet”

“What is a throne but a stool covered in velvet?” is a recurring quip through which Terje Rød-Larsen treats political authority as less imposing than its trappings suggest. Its second appearance changes the joke’s meaning: after Mona Juul reveals that Terje has long claimed it as his own, Uri Savir recognizes it as one of Napoleon’s famous maxims. The line thus links Terje’s studied irreverence to a comic question of authorship and familiarity.

The Quip and Its First Appearance

In one exchange, Marianne Heiberg asks Mona whether Terje said the remark to Yitzhak Rabin. Mona answers that her husband shows no deference to power, and Terje offers the throne line. The sequence connects the quip to a specific kind of social boldness: its target is not a policy or a person’s character, but the visible grandeur of office itself. A throne, in his formulation, is furniture made impressive by velvet.

Mona’s immediate response—that Terje has used the line before—establishes its recurrence within their shared life. Terje replies as though he cannot remember doing so. The brief exchange leaves his forgetfulness unresolved, but its comic structure is clear: Mona recognizes a familiar performance, while Terje’s question prolongs the joke rather than explaining it. Her knowledge of the repeated line makes her an active counterweight to his effortless aphorism.

A Second Appearance in Conversation

The line returns in a conversation with Uri Savir, who first praises Terje’s cellar and suggests that Mona should make him Foreign Minister if his diplomatic skills are half as good. Mona rejects the suggestion, saying Terje abhors the limelight. Terje answers with the throne quip, placing the joke beside a contrast between diplomatic ability and public prominence. In this exchange, the line is not simply a comment on rulers: it also helps characterize Terje as someone unwilling, at least as Mona describes him, to seek a prominent political role.

Savir responds in French, calling Terje a fellow admirer of Napoleon and asking whether he has read Napoleon’s maxims in the original French. Terje replies haltingly that he has, but many years earlier. Mona then says Napoleon’s name, and Savir confirms that the throne remark is one of Napoleon’s most famous maxims. The conversation moves from a polished quip to its source through a sequence of recognition: Savir hears an echo, tests it by asking about the original French, and identifies the attribution.

Authorship, Familiarity, and Character

Mona’s final observation—that Terje has always told her the line was his—makes the revelation personal as well as literary. The scene does not dwell on the historical provenance of the saying beyond Savir’s identification; its dramatic focus is Terje’s familiar claim and Mona’s knowledge of it. Her reply shows that she has heard the claim over time, while Savir’s intervention supplies a competing attribution in front of her.

Together, the two appearances give the line a double function. It expresses Terje’s refusal to be awed by political rank, as Mona’s reference to his lack of deference suggests, but its repetition also makes it part of his own conversational repertoire. The Napoleon exchange punctures any impression that the aphorism is his invention without erasing what its use reveals about him. The joke remains apt to Terje’s persona even after its authorship is corrected: a compact way to deflate the grandeur of power, delivered by a man who, according to Mona, does not want the limelight for himself.