Apropos of these presentations of budgets, I recall one circumstance which ought to find a place in my Memoirs, because it is wholly personal to me, and because, moreover, it may give an idea of the manner in which the Emperor understood economy. It started from the notion, often very correct, in my opinion, that in his public expenses, even granting the probity of people (I admit it was a supposition the Emperor was little inclined to make), the same things might be done for much less money. Hence when he required diminutions, he did not wish to apply them to the number of objects of expense, but to the prices set upon these objects by the purveyors. I shall have occasion to cite elsewhere several examples of the influence exerted by this idea on the conduct of His Majesty with regard to the responsible agents of his government. For the present I will set down here what relates to me: one day when the different private budgets were being settled, the Emperor scolded a good deal over the cost of the stables, and struck off a considerable sum. The grand equerry, to accomplish the required reductions, deprived several members of the household of their carriages, and mine was included in the reform. Some days after this measure was carried out, His Majesty charged me with some commission for which a carriage was required. I told him that as I no longer had mine I was unable to obey his orders. The Emperor then exclaimed that this was not his intention, and that M. de Caulaincourt understood retrenchments badly; and when he saw the Duc de Vicenza again, he told him he did not wish to have anything touched that concerned me.

In the mornings the Emperor sometimes read the current new books and novels. When a work displeased him, he threw it into the fire. It would be an error to believe that it was only bad books that were burned in this fashion. When the author was not one of those whom he liked, or if he spoke too well of a foreign people, that was a sufficient reason for committing the volume to the flames. I saw His Majesty throw a volume of the Baroness de Staël's book on Germany into the fire. If he found us reading in the evenings, in the little salon where we awaited the time of his retiring, he would look at our books, and if they were novels they were burned without mercy. His Majesty seldom failed to add a little lecture to the confiscation, and to ask the delinquent if a man could not read something better than that. One morning when he had run through and thrown into the fire a work by I know not what author, Roustan stooped to pull it out, but the Emperor opposed this, saying: "Let the trash burn; it is all it is fit for."

The Emperor did not ride gracefully, and I think his seat would not always have been firm if such
pains had not been taken never to give him any but perfectly trained horses. There were no precautions on this point that were not taken. The horses intended for the personal use of the Emperor passed through a rude novitiate before arriving at the honor of carrying him. They were accustomed to suffer every sort of torture without making the least movement; they were struck over the head and ears with a whip; drums were beaten, pistols fired, and firecrackers set off close beside them; flags were shaken before their eyes; heavy packets, sometimes even sheep and pigs, were thrown between their legs. It was essential that even in the midst of the most rapid gallop (the Emperor liked no other pace) he should be able to bring his horse to a dead stop. Nothing, in a word, would serve him but thoroughly broken horses. M. Jardin senior, His Majesty's equerry, acquitted himself of his difficult task with great address and skill; hence the Emperor prized him highly.

His Majesty was very particular about his horses being handsome, and in the latter years of his reign he mounted none but Arabians. There were several of these noble animals that the Emperor had an affection for, among others La Styrie, which he rode at Mont Saint-Bernard and Marengo. A ter the latter campaign, he desired to have his favorite end his life in the luxury of repose. Marengo and the Great Saint-Bernard were a sufficiently well-filled career. The Emperor had also for many years an Arabian horse of rare instinct, which pleased him much. During all the time that he awaited his rider, it would have been difficult to discover in him the least grace; but as soon as he heard the drums beating a salute, which announced the presence of His Majesty, he would draw himself up proudly, shake his head in every direction, paw the ground, and so long as the Emperor was on his back he was the most beautiful horse that could be seen. His Majesty esteemed good equerries highly; therefore no pains were spared to give his pages the most careful education in this respect. Besides being instructed to ride with solidity and grace, they also practiced vaulting exercises which, one would think, would be needed only in the Olympic Circus. It was, in fact, one of M. Franconi's equerries who was entrusted with this part of the education of the pages.

The Emperor, as has been said elsewhere, took no pleasure in hunting, except in so far as was necessary to conform to the exigencies of the usage which makes this royal exercise an essential accompaniment of the throne and the crown. Yet I have seen him pursue it occasionally for a time long enough to persuade one that it did not bore him. He hunted one day in the forest of Rambouillet from six in the morning until eight in the evening. It was a stag that caused this extraordinary excursion, and I remember that even then they did not succeed in running it down. In one of the imperial hunts at Rambouillet, at which the Empress Josephine was present, a stag pursued by the huntsmen threw itself under the carriage of the Empress. This refuge did not betray it; for Her Majesty, touched by the tears of the poor animal, asked the Emperor to spare it. The stag was spared, and the good Josephine herself fastened a silver collar about its neck, which was to attest its deliverance and protect it from the attacks of all hunters.

There was one of Her Majesty's ladies who one day showed less humanity than she, and the reply she made the Emperor singularly displeased the latter, who loved gentleness and pity in women. They had been hunting for some hours in the wood of Boulogne; the Emperor came up to the carriage of the Empress Josephine, and began to chat with this lady, who bore one of the most ancient and noble names in France, and who, without having desired it, people said, had been placed near the Empress. The Prince de Neufchâtel came to say that the deer was at bay.

"Madame," said the Emperor gallantly to Madame de C——, "what shall be done with the Deer? I leave his fate in your hands." "Do what you like with it, Sire," she replied. "I hardly interest myself in it." The Emperor looked coldly at her, and said to the chief huntsman: "Since the deer has the misfortune not to interest Madame de C——, it does not deserve to live; kill it." And thereupon His Majesty turned rein and departed. He had been shocked by such a response, and he repeated it in the evening, on returning from the chase, in terms not very flattering to Madame de C——.

We read in the Memorial of Saint-Helena that the Emperor, having been upset and wounded by a boar on a hunting excursion, had a large contusion on one finger in consequence. I never saw it, nor did I ever have any knowledge of such an accident happening to His Majesty.

The Emperor did not rest his gun well against his shoulder, and as he would have it heavily loaded and rammed down, he never discharged it without making his arm black and blue. I used to rub the bruised place with eau de Cologne, and His Majesty thought no more about it.

The ladies followed the chase in open carriages. A table was usually laid for breakfast in the forest, and all who took part in the hunt were invited to it.

The Emperor once tried falconry in the plain of Rambouillet. This performance had been commanded in order to try the falconry which the King of Holland (Louis) had sent as a present to His Majesty. All the household made an event of seeing this chase, of which they had heard so much; but it seemed to please the Emperor much less than hunting and shooting, and the falconry was never used again.

His Majesty was very fond of the theatre. He had a marked preference for French tragedy and Italian
opera. Corneille was his favorite author; I always found some volume of the works of this great poet on his table. Very often I have heard the Emperor repeating, as he walked up and down his room, some lines from Cinna, or this tirade from the Death of Cæsar:

"Cæsar, thou art to reign. Behold the day August,
When the Roman people, always to thee unjust," etc.

On the stage at Saint-Cloud, the evening's spectacle often consisted merely of pieces and fragments. They would take one act from one opera, and another from another, which was very unsatisfactory for spectators whom the first piece had begun to interest. Frequently, too, they played comedies, and then the household were delighted. The Emperor himself enjoyed them much. How often I have seen him ready to die with laughing on seeing Baptiste the younger in Les Héritiers. Michaut also amused him greatly in La Partie de chasse de Henri IV.

I no longer remember in what year it was that, during a journey of the court to Fontainebleau, the tragedy of The Venetians, by M. Arnault senior, was represented before the Emperor. That evening at the couchee, His Majesty talked about the piece with Marshal Duroc, and supported his criticisms by many reasons. The motives for praise as well as for censure were alleged and discussed; the grand marshal spoke little; the Emperor never was silent. Although a very poor judge of such matters, it was a very amusing as well as a very instructive thing for me to listen to the Emperor discoursing thus concerning the old or new pieces which were played before him. I am certain that his observations and remarks could not but have been profitable to the authors, had they been there, like me, to hear them. For me, if I gained anything, it was to be able to speak here a little (although very little) more pertinently about them than a blind man about colors; however, lest I should speak badly, I will return to things belonging to my department.

It has been said that His Majesty took a great deal of tobacco, and that in order to be able to take it more quickly and frequently, he put it in a waistcoat pocket lined with skin for this purpose; these are so many errors; the Emperor never put tobacco in anything but his snuff-boxes, and though he consumed a great deal, he took but very little. He brought his pinch to his nostrils as if simply to smell it, and then he let it fall. It is true that the place where he had been was often covered with it; but his handkerchiefs, incontrovertible witnesses in such matters, were scarcely soiled, although they were very white and of very fine lawn; certainly these are not the marks of a snuff-taker. He often contented himself with putting an open snuff-box under his nose to breathe the odor of the tobacco it contained. His boxes were narrow, oval, hinged, of black shell lined with gold, and ornamented with cameos or antique medals in gold or silver. He had had round snuffboxes, but as it took both hands to open them, and as he sometimes let fall either the box or the cover in this operation, he became disgusted with them.
 

His snuff was rasped very large and was usually composed of several kinds of tobacco mixed together. Sometimes he amused himself by feeding it to the gazelles he had at Saint-Cloud. They were very fond of it, and although they could not be wilder than they were with every one else, they approached His Majesty without fear.

The Emperor only once had the whim of trying to smoke a pipe; it was on the following occasion: the Persian ambassador (or perhaps the Turkish ambassador who came to Paris under the Consulate) had presented His Majesty with a very handsome Oriental pipe. One day he took a notion to try it, and had everything necessary made ready. The fire having been applied to the recipient, the question was now to communicate it to the tobacco, which could never have been done in the way His Majesty set about it. He contented himself with alternately opening and closing his mouth, without the slightest inspiration. "How the deuce!" he exclaimed at last; "it can't be done." I made him observe that he was managing it badly, and showed him how it should be done. But the Emperor constantly returned to his species of yawning. Tired of his vain efforts, he told me in the end to light the pipe. I obeyed and returned it to him. But hardly had he inhaled one puff, when the smoke, which he did not know how to eject from his mouth, began to circulate round the palate, went down his throat and came out through the eyes and nose. As soon as he could recover breath: "Take that away! what a stench! oh, the swine! it turns my stomach!" He felt unwell, in fact, for at least an hour, and renounced forever a pleasure "the habit of which," said he, "was good for nothing but to enliven idlers."

As concerned his clothes, the Emperor was particular about nothing but the fineness of the material and that they should be large enough. His dress-coats and all others, including the famous gray greatcoat, were all made of the finest Louviers cloth. Under the Consulate he followed the existing fashion by having his coat-tails extremely long. Later, the fashion having changed, they were worn much shorter, but the Emperor adhered singularly to the length of his, and I had great difficulty in inducing him to give them up. Even then it was only by a trick that I managed it. Every time I ordered a new coat for His Majesty, I recommended the tailor to shorten the tails by a good inch, until at last, without the Emperor's noticing it, they ceased to be ridiculous. On this point he did not renounce his old habits so easily as on all others, and he was especially determined not to have his clothes tight; hence he did not always present a very elegant appearance. The King of Naples, of all Frenchmen the one most particular about his dress, which was almost always in the best taste, sometimes bantered him about his toilet. "Sire," said he to the Emperor, "Your Majesty dresses too much like a daddy [trop à la papa]. Pray, Sire, give your faithful subjects the example of taste." "To please you," replied the Emperor, "wouldn't it be necessary for me to dress like a dandy, a coxcomb, in a word, like His Majesty the King of Naples and the Two Sicilies? I cling to my old habits, for my part."

However, when these discussions on the toilet were renewed at the time of His Majesty's marriage with the Empress Marie-Louise, the King of Naples entreated the Emperor to let him send him his tailor. His Majesty, who was then seeking every means of pleasing his young wife, accepted the offer of his brother-in-law. I went the same day to Léger, who made King Joachim's clothes, and brought him with me to the château, advising him to make the coats to be ordered from him as loose as possible, being certain beforehand that, unlike M. Jourdan, if the Emperor did not get into them with the greatest ease, he would not take them. Léger paid no attention to my advice; he took his measures very close. The two coats were perfectly well made, but the Emperor found them inconvenient. He only put them on once, and Léger was thencoforward dispensed from working for His Majesty. Another time, long before this period, he had ordered a very beautiful coat of maroon velvet, with diamond buttons. He came down thus dressed to Her Majesty the Empress's drawing-room, but with a black cravat. The Empress Josephine had prepared a magnificent lace collar for him, but nothing I could say would induce him to wear it.

The Emperor's vests and breeches were always of white cashmere. He changed them every morning. They were washed only three or four times. Two hours after leaving his chamber, it often happened that his breeches were all spotted with ink, thanks to his habit of wiping his pen on them and shaking ink all around him by striking his pen against the table. However, as he dressed in the morning for the whole day, he did not change his toilet on that account, but remained in this state until night. I have already said that he wore none but white silk stockings. His shoes, which were very light and fine, were lined with silk. The whole inside of his boots was lined with white fustian. Whenever one of his legs itched, he rubbed it with the heel of the boot or shoe with which the other leg was shod, thus heightening the effect of the spilled ink. His shoe buckles were of gold, oval in form, and either plain or faceted. He wore gold buckles on his garters also. Under the Empire I never saw him wear trousers.

As a result of the Emperor's fidelity to his old habits, his shoemaker, in the early days of the Empire, belonged to the École Militaire. From that period his shoes were cut after his first measures, without taking new ones; hence his shoes, like his boots, were always badly made and ungraceful. He wore them pointed for a long time; I contrived to have them made in the duck-bill shape that was then the fashion. His old measures finally became too small, and I induced His Majesty to have others taken. I hastened at once to his shoemaker, a great simpleton who had succeeded to his father. He had never seen the Emperor, although he worked for him, and he was completely stupefied on learning that he would have to appear before His Majesty; his head swam. How could he dare to present himself before the Emperor? What costume must he wear? I encouraged him, and said that he would need a French black coat, with breeches, a sword, a hat, etc. Thus adorned he repaired to the Tuileries. On entering His Majesty's chamber, he made a profound salute, and remained much embarrassed. "Is it not you," said the Emperor, "who made my shoes when I was at the Military School?" "No, Your Majesty the Emperor and King, it was my father."—"And why is it no longer he?" "Sire the Emperor and King, because he is dead."—" How much do you make me pay for my shoes?" "Your Majesty the Emperor and King pays eighteen francs?"—"It is very dear." "Your Majesty the Emperor and King might pay much dearer for them if he liked." The Emperor laughed a good deal at this nonsense and had his measure taken. His Majesty's laughter had completely disconcerted the poor man; as he drew near, with his hat under his arm and making a thousand salutes, his sword got caught between his legs; broke in two, and made him fall on his hands and knees. This was more than His Majesty could stand, and his laughs redoubled; at last the worthy shoemaker, disembarrassed of his rapier, easily took the Emperor's measure and withdrew, making many excuses.

All of His Majesty's body-linen was extremely fine and marked with a crowned N. He did not wear braces at first, but afterwards made use of them and found them very convenient. Next his skin he wore waistcoats of English flannel. The Empress Josephine had twelve cashmere waistcoats made for his use in summer.
 

Many persons have believed that the Emperor had a cuirass under his coats while travelling or with the army. This is absolutely false; His Majesty never put on a cuirass, nor anything resembling one, either under his coats or over them.

The Emperor never wore jewellery; he carried neither purse nor money in his pockets, but merely his handkerchief, his snuff-box, and his sweetmeat box. On his coats he wore nothing but a star and two crosses, that of the Legion of Honor, and that of the Iron Crown. Under his uniform and on his vest, he had a red ribbon, the two ends of which could scarcely be seen. When there was a drawing-room at the château, or when he held a review, he wore this grand cordon on his coat.

His hat, the shape of which it would be useless to describe, since there are so many portraits of His Majesty, was of extremely light and fine beaver, lined with silk and wadded. It had neither tassels, fringe, nor feathers, but simply a narrow, flat silk cord which supported a small tricolored cockade.

The Emperor had several Bréguet and Meunier watches; they were repeaters, very simple, without ornaments or cipher, the faces covered with glass, and the cases gold. M. Las Cases speaks of a watch covered on both sides with a gold case and marked with a B. which the Emperor always carried. I never knew of any like it, and yet I was the depositary of all his jewels; I even had charge during several years of the crown diamonds. The Emperor often broke his watch by sending it flying, as I have said before, on some piece of furniture in his bedchamber. He had two repeaters of Meunier's making, one in his carriage and one in the head of his bedstead. He caused them to strike with a little green silk cord; he had even a third, but it was old and bad and could not be used. This was the one which had belonged to Frederick the Great, and which he had brought from Berlin.

His Majesty's swords were very simple, the hilts of gold, with an owl on the pommel. He had two made like that which he wore at the battle of Austerlitz. One of them was given to the Emperor Alexander, as will be seen later, and the other to Prince Eugène in 1814. That which the Emperor had at Austerlitz, and on which he had engraved the name and date of that memorable battle, was to be enclosed in the column of the Place Vendome. His Majesty had it still, I think, at Saint-Helena.

He had also several sabres which he had carried in his first campaigns, and on which he had had engraved the names of the battles in which he had used it. They were distributed to different generals by His Majesty the Emperor. I will speak later of this distribution.

No one ever knew the hour of the Emperor's departure when he was about to leave his capital to rejoin his armies or for a simple excursion into the departments. It was necessary in advance to send on different routes a complete service for the chamber, the kitchen, and the stables; sometimes they waited for three weeks or a month, and when His Majesty was gone, the services remaining on the routes he had not taken were recalled. I have often thought that the Emperor acted in this way in order to disconcert the schemes of those who were spying his proceedings, and to mislead the politicians. The day on which he was to start, no one but he knew it; everything went on as usual. After a concert, a play, or some other entertainment which had brought together a large number of persons, His Majesty would say to his coachman: "I start at two o'clock." Sometimes it was earlier, sometimes later, but they always started at the hour he had fixed. The order was instantly transmitted by each head of the service; all was found ready at the appointed time, but the château was left upside down. I have elsewhere given a description of the confusion which immediately preceded and followed the departure of the Emperor. Wherever His Majesty lodged while on a journey, he caused his own expenses and those of his household to be paid before leaving; he made presents to his hosts and gave gratuities to the domestics of the house. On Sundays, the Emperor heard the Mass said by the curé of the place he was in, and always gave twenty napoleons, sometimes more, according to the needs of the poor of the commune. He questioned the curés a good deal about their resources, those of their parishioners, and the spirit and morality of the population, etc. He seldom failed to ask the number of births, deaths, and marriages, and if there were many young fellows and girls of marriageable age. If the curé answered in a satisfactory manner, and if he had not taken too long to say his Mass, he could rely on the good graces of His Majesty; his church and his poor fared well for it, and for himself the Emperor left on hm departure, or else had sent, a brevet as chevalier of the Legion of Honor. In general, His Majesty liked to have people answer him with assurance and without timidity; he even put up with being contradicted; they might give him an inexact answer without risk; that happened nearly always and he paid little attention to it, but he never failed to leave those who spoke to him in a hesitating or embarrassed manner.

Wherever the Emperor resided, he always had on duty, by day as well as by night, a page and an aide de-camp who slept on folding beds. He had also in the antechamber a quartermaster of cavalry and a brigadier of the stables, to go, when he required it, and bring forward the equipages which they were careful to keep always in marching order; horses all saddled and bridled, and carriages with two horses came out of the stables at the first sign from His Majesty. They were relieved from service every two hours, like sentinels.

I said just now that His Majesty liked prompt responses and those which showed a quick intelligence. Here are two anecdotes which seem to me to support this assertion.

One day when the Emperor was holding a review on the Place du Carrousel, his horse reared, and in the efforts His Majesty made to hold him, his hat fell off. A lieutenant (his name, I think, was Rabusson), at whose feet the hat had fallen, picked it up and stepped from the ranks to offer it to His Majesty. "Thank you, Captain," said the Emperor, still occupied in quieting his horse. "In what regiment, Sire?" asked the officer. The Emperor looked at him then with more attention, and perceiving his mistake, said with a smile: "Ah, that is right, sir, in the guard." A few days later the new captain received the brevet which he owed to his presence of mind, but which he had well merited before by his bravery and capacity.

At another review, His Majesty perceived, in the ranks of a regiment of the line, an old soldier whose arm was decorated with three chevrons. He recognized him also as having served in the army of Italy, and approaching him he asked: "Well, my lad, why haven't you the cross! You do not look like a bad fellow." "Sire," responded the vieux moustache with a sad gravity, "they have passed me over three times for the cross." "They won't do so a fourth time," returned the Emperor; and he ordered Marshal Berthier to put the man on the next list for promotion, and in fact he soon became a chevalier of the Legion of Honor.