of his power. He did not take them as a show of sincere popularity as Ceaușescu did during his later years. Carol had a populist style, depicting himself as the defender of the common man against the corrupt Francophile elites (especially the National Liberals) mixed in with generous elements of nationalism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Carol's tendency to throw together populism, authoritarianism, vaguely xenophobic nationalism, and Orthodoxy superficially resembled the style of the Iron Guard, albeit Carol's message was far less passionate than that of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, "the Captain" who preached a message of ferociously xenophobic ultra-nationalism, intense Orthodox mysticism, extremely violent anti-Semitism, a populist disdain for all the elites and a glorification of death, in the service of the cause as the most beautiful, glorious, noble and erotic experience in the entire world. Codreanu, a man with a fanatic death fetish, had made the Iron Guard into a macabre death cult and often sent his followers out on what were clearly suicidal missions. After committing murders, Iron Guardsmen rarely attempted to flee, and instead - waited to be arrested as they wanted to be executed for their crimes. Many found the way that Legionaries went to their executions positively giddy and joyful about the prospect of their own deaths, happily proclaiming their death was the happiest moment of their life, a deeply eerie experience. Carol regarded Codreanu's death fetish together with his claim that "the Archangel Michael had told him that God had chosen him to save Romania" - as evidence that Codreanu was "crazy". Carol had sworn in his coronation an oath to uphold the constitution of 1923, a promise he had no intention of keeping, and right from the start of his reign, the king meddled in politics to increase his own power. Carol was an opportunist with no real principles or values other than the belief he was the right man to rule Romania, and that what his kingdom needed was a modernizing dictatorship. Carol ruled via an informal body known as the camarilla, comprising courtiers together with senior diplomats, army officers, politicians, and industrialists - who were all in some way dependent upon royal favor to advance their careers. The most important member of the camarilla was Carol's mistress, Madame Lupescu, whose political advice Carol greatly valued. Maniu had brought Carol to the throne out of the fear that the Regency for Michael I was