The hour fixed for the play at Erfurt was seven, but the two emperors, who always came there together, never arrived before half-past seven. At their entry, the whole parterre of kings rose to salute them, and the first piece began at once.

At the representation of Cinna, the Emperor thought he observed that the Czar, who sat beside him in a box of the first tier, facing the stage, lost some of the play on account of the weakness of his hearing. Consequently he gave orders to Count de Rémusat, first chamberlain, to have a platform raised on the site of the orchestra. Two armchairs were placed on it for Alexander and Napoleon; and to left and right stuffed seats for the King of Saxony and the other sovereigns of the confederation. The princesses took the box abandoned by Their Majesties. This arrangement made the two emperors so conspicuous that they could not make a movement that everybody did not see. Œdipa was performed October 3; and all the sovereigns, as the Emperor used to say, were present at this representation. At the moment when the actor pronounced this verse from the first scene:

the Czar rose and gracefully extended his hand to the Emperor. Bursts of applause, which the presence of the sovereigns could not restrain, rose at once from every quarter of the theatre.

That evening I assisted the Emperor to bed as usual. All the doors leading into his chamber were carefully closed, as well as the shutters and windows. Hence no one could approach His Majesty except through the salon where I slept with Roustan. A sentry was stationed at the foot of the staircase. I always went to sleep very tranquilly, sure that nothing could happen to Napoleon without awakening me. About two o'clock that morning, when I was sleeping very profoundly, a strange noise suddenly awaked me. I rubbed my eyes, listened with the closest attention, and hearing absolutely nothing, I concluded that I had been dreaming, and was getting ready to go asleep again, when my ears caught the sound of muffled and plaintive cries such as might be uttered by a man who was being strangled. I heard them twice. I was sitting up, motionless, my hair standing up on my head, and my limbs bathed in a cold perspiration. Suddenly it occurred to me that they were assassinating the Emperor. I sprang out of bed and woke Roustan. . . . The cries began anew with alarming force. Thereupon I opened the door with all the precautions that my trouble permitted me to take, and entered the bedchamber. A hasty glance convinced me that no one had come in. Advancing toward the bed, I perceived His Majesty stretched across it in a convulsive attitude, his sheets and coverlets tossed to one side, and his entire person in a frightful state of nervous contraction. Inarticulate cries were escaping from his half-open mouth, his chest seemed greatly oppressed, and one of his tightly closed hands lay on the pit of his stomach. It frightened me to look at him. I called him and he did not answer; I called him again, and yet again . . . the same silence. At last I gave him a gentle push. This roused the Emperor and he awoke with a loud cry, and saying: "What is it? what is it?" Then he sat up and opened his eyes wide. I made haste to tell him that, seeing him tormented by a horrible nightmare, I had ventured to waken him. "And you did well, my dear Constant," interrupted His Majesty. "Ah! my friend, what a frightful dream! a bear tore open my breast and was devouring my heart!" Thereupon the Emperor got up, and while I was remaking his bed, he walked about the room. He was obliged to change his shirt, for that he had on was all wet with perspiration. At last he lay down again.

He told me the next morning on awaking, that he had had all the trouble in the world to go to sleep again, so vivid and terrible had been the impression he had experienced. He was haunted for a long time by the memory of this dream. He often spoke of it, trying each time to draw different conclusions from it, to compare its circumstances. I was struck, for my own part, by the coincidence between Alexander's compliment at the play and this frightful nightmare, all the more because the Emperor was by no means subject to nocturnal disturbances of this sort. I do not know whether His Majesty related his dream to the Emperor of Russia.

On October 6, Their Majesties attended a great hunting party given by the Grand Duke of Weimar in the forest of Ettersburg. The Emperor started from Erfurt at noon, with the Emperor of Russia, in the same carriage. They reached the forest by one o'clock, where they found a hunting pavilion which had been constructed expressly for their use and decorated with much care. It was divided into three rooms separated by open columns. The middle one, which was raised above the others, formed a charming salon, arranged and furnished for the two emperors. Numerous orchestras were ranged around the pavilion, playing fanfares which blended with the acclamations of the immense crowd drawn thither by the desire to see the Emperor.

On alighting from their carriage the two sovereigns were received by the Grand Duke of Weimar and his son, the Hereditary Prince Charles Frederick. The King of Bavaria, the King of Saxony, the King of Würtemberg, Prince William of Prussia, the Princes of Mecklenburg, the Prince-primate and the Duke of Oldenburg awaited them at the entrance of the salon.

The Emperor had in his train Prince de Neufchâtel; Prince de Benevento; the Duc de Frioul, grand marshal of the palace; General Caulaincourt, Duc de Vicenza; the Duc de Rovigo; General Lauriston, aide-de-camp to His Majesty; General Nansouty, first equerry; chamberlain Eugène de Montesquiou; Count de Beausset, prefect of the palace, and M. Cavaletti.

The Emperor of Russia had with him the Grand Duke Constantine, Count Tolstoï grand marshal, and Count Oggeroski, aide-de-camp to His Majesty.

The chase lasted nearly two hours, in which time sixty deer were slaughtered. The space these poor beasts had to cover was enclosed by canvas, so that the monarchs could fire at pleasure, without disturbing themselves, sitting in the windows of the pavilion. I have never in my life seen anything more absurd than this kind of hunting, but those who practice it gain the reputation of being skilful marksmen. Great skill, to be sure, to kill an animal that the huntsmen take by the ears, so to say, and set in front of the gun!

The sight of the Emperor of Russia was very poor, and this infirmity had always deterred him from an amusement which otherwise he might have liked. On this day, however, he had an inclination to try it; he expressed the wish, and the Duc de Montebello at once handed him a gun. M. de Beauterne had the honor of giving the Emperor his initial lesson; a stag was hustled within some eight paces of Alexander, who brought him down at the first shot!

After the hunt, Their Majesties repaired to the palace of Weimar; the reigning Duchess received them as they alighted from their carriage, followed by all her court. The Emperor affectionately saluted the Duchess, recollecting that he had seen her two years before in a very different circumstance, of which I have spoken in its proper place. The Duke of Weimar had asked the grand marshal, Duc de Frioul, for some French cooks to prepare the Emperor's dinner; but His Majesty preferred to eat in the German style.

Their Majesties admitted to their table the Duke and Duchess of Weimar, the Queen of Westphalia, the King of Würtemberg, the King of Saxony, the Grand Duke Constantine, Prince William of Prussia, the Prince-primate, Prince de Neufchâtel, the Duke of Oldenburg,the Hereditary Prince of Weimar, and the Prince of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

After the dinner there was a play and a ball, the former at the town theatre, where the ordinary comedians of His Majesty played La Mort de César, and the latter at the ducal palace. Alexander opened the ball with the Queen of Westphalia, to the great astonishment of everybody; for it was known that this monarch had never danced since his accession to the throne, a reserve thought very praiseworthy by the elders of the Russian court, who believe that a sovereign is too high-placed to share the tastes and take pleasure in the amusements of the commoner sort of men. For that matter, there was nothing to scandalize them at the Duke of Weimar's ball; people did not dance, they promenaded in couples while the orchestra played marches.

The next morning, Their Majesties went in a carriage to the Mont Napoléon, near Jena. A splendid breakfast was ready for them under a tent which the Duke of Weimar had had set up on the very spot where the Emperor had bivouacked the day of the battle of Jena. After breakfast the two Emperors climbed up to a wooden pavilion which had been constructed on the Mont Napoléon. It was very large, and had been decorated with plans of the battle. A deputation from the city and the university of Jena went thither and was received by Their Majesties. With the deputies the Emperor entered into great details concerning their city, its resources, and the manners and character of its inhabitants. He questioned them as to the approximate value of the damages which might have been inflicted on the people of Jena by the military hospital which had so long remained in permanence amongst them. He wanted to know the names of those who had suffered most from the conflagration and the war, and gave orders for gratuities to be distributed among them. The small proprietors were to be completely indemnified. His Majesty informed himself with interest of the condition of Catholic worship, and promised to endow the presbytery in perpetuity. He granted three hundred thousand francs for the chief necessities, and promised to give still more.

After visiting on horseback the positions which the two armies had held on the eve and the day of the battle of Jena, as well as the plain of Aspolda, in which the Duke had arranged a shooting match, the two emperors returned to Erfurt, where they arrived at five o'clock in the evening, almost at the same time as the Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden and the Princess Stéphanie.

During the whole time of the excursion made by the two sovereigns to the battle-field, the Emperor had been extremely obliging in giving explanations to the young Czar, which the latter listened to with an equally extreme curiosity. His Majesty seemed to take pleasure in developing before his august ally, and in the presence of the sovereigns surrounding them, firstly the plan which he had formed and followed at Jena, and afterwards the various plans of his other campaigns, the manœuvres which he deemed the best, his habitual tactics, and in fine his ideas on the art of war. The Emperor in this way bore the whole brunt of the conversation during several hours, and his audience of kings paid him as much attention as pupils eager to learn give to the instructions of their master.

When His Majesty returned to his apartment, I heard Marshal Berthier say to him: "Sire, are you not afraid that the sovereigns may some day turn against you all that you have just been teaching them? Your Majesty seems to have forgotten what you have sometimes told us, namely, that we ought to act with our allies as if they were later to become our enemies." "Berthier," replied the Emperor, smiling, "that is a courageous observation on your part, and I thank you for it; I fear, God forgive me! that you must have thought me a rattle-pate. You think then," pursued His Majesty, seizing one of the Prince de Neufchâtel's ears, "that I have been silly in giving them the whips with which they may come back and scourge us? Don't be alarmed, I do not tell them everything."

The table of the Emperor at Erfurt was semi-elliptical in form. At the upper end, and consequently at the rounded part of this table, Their Majesties were seated; to left and right the sovereigns of the confederation according to their rank. The side opposite Their Majesties' places was always vacant. There remained standing the prefect of the palace, M. de Beausset, who relates in his Memoirs that he one day listened to the following conversation:

"That day (October 7) the conversation turned on the Golden Bull which, up to the establishment of the confederation of the Rhine, had served as constitution and regulation for the election of emperors, the number and quality of the electors, etc. The Prince-primate entered into some details concerning this Golden Bull, which he said was made in 1409. The Emperor Napoleon called his attention to the fact that the date he assigned to the bull was not exact, and that it was proclaimed in 1336, under the reign of the Emperor Charles IV. "True, Sire," responded the Prince-primate, "I was mistaken; but how does it happen that Your Majesty is so well acquainted with such things?" "When I was a simple second lieutenant of artillery," said Napoleon. . . . At this beginning there was a movement of very marked interest on the part of the illustrious guests. He resumed, smiling: . . . "When I had the honor to be a simple second lieutenant of artillery, I was in garrison for three years at Valence. I cared little for society and lived in great retirement. A happy chance had lodged me near a bookseller who was learned and obliging. . . . I read and re-read his library during those three years in garrison, and have forgotten nothing, even matters bearing no relation to my position. Nature, moreover, had endowed me with a memory for figures; it often happens when with my ministers that I cite for them the details and numerical total of their oldest accounts."

Some days before his departure from Erfurt, the Emperor gave the cross of the Legion of Honor to M. de Bigi, commandant at arms of the place; to M. Vegel, burgomaster to Jena; to MM. Wieland and Goethe, and to M. Starlk, senior physician at Jena; to General Count Tolstoï;, ambassador from Russia, recalled from this post by his sovereigns to be employed in the army, the grand decoration of the Legion of Honor; to Dean Meimung, who had twice said Mass at the palace, a ring of brilliants with the cipher N crowned, and a hundred napoleons for the two priests who had assisted him; and finally to the grand marshal of the palace, Count Tolstoï, the fine Gobelins tapestries, Savonnerie carpets, and Sèvres china which had been brought from Paris to furnish the palace of Erfurt. The ministers, great officers, and officers of Alexander's suite received magnificent presents from His Majesty. The Emperor Alexander acted in the same manner toward the persons attached to His Majesty. To the Due de Vicence he gave the broad ribbon of Saint Andrew, and the plaque of the same order in diamonds to the Princes of Benevento and Neufchâtel.

Charmed with the talent of the French comedians, and chiefly with Talma, he sent fine presents to him and all his companions; he complimented the actresses and the director, M. Dazincourt, whom he did not forget in his largesses.

This interview at Erfurt, so dazzling for its illuminations, wealth, and luxury, terminated October 14. All of the great persons 1 whom it had attracted thither left between the 8th and 14th of the month.

On the day of his departure, the Emperor gave audience after his levee to Baron de Vincent, envoy extraordinary of Austria, and remitted to him a letter for his sovereign. At eleven o'clock the Emperor of Russia came to see His Majesty, who received and showed him out again with the greatest ceremony. Shortly afterwards His Majesty repaired to the palace of Russia, accompanied by all his court. After mutual compliments, the two sovereigns entered a carriage and did not leave each other until they had reached the spot where they had met on arriving, on the road to Weimar. There they embraced affectionately and separated. At half-past nine o'clock in the evening, October 18, the Emperor was at Saint-Cloud, having made the entire journey incognito.