The Emperor went to Strasbourg without stopping; the day after his arrival in that city the army began to defile upon the bridge of Kehl. On the eve of this passage, the Emperor had ordered the general officers to be on the bank of the Rhine at precisely six o'clock the following morning. An hour before the rendezvous His Majesty, in spite of the heavy rain, went alone to the head of the bridge to make sure that the orders he had given were executed. He waited in the rain until the first divisions began to deploy on the bridge, and he was so drenched by it that the drops from his clothes came together under his horse and formed a small cascade. His little hat was so badly soaked that the back of it fell down on his shoulders much in the fashion of the big felt hats of the Parisian charcoal men. The generals whom he awaited came around him, when they were assembled, he said: "Everything is going well, gentlemen; this is a new step taken against our enemies; but where is Vandamme? Why is he not here? Can he be dead?" No one said a word. "Answer me, gentlemen, what has become of Vandamme?" General Chardon of the vanguard, who was much liked by the Emperor, replied: "I think, Sire, that General Vandamme is still asleep; we drank a dozen bottles of Rhine wine together last evening, and doubtless . . . " "Sir, he did well to drink, but he is wrong to sleep when I am waiting for him." General Chardon was about to send an aide-de-camp to his companion in arms, but the Emperor detained him, saying: "Let Vandamme sleep; I will talk to him later." At this moment General Vandamme made his appearance. "Ah! there you are, sir; it seems you forgot the order I gave yesterday." "Sire, it is the first time such a thing has happened, and . . . "—" And to avoid a second, you will go and fight under the standard of the King of Würtemberg; I hope you will give the Germans some lessons in sobriety." General Vandamme withdrew, not without chagrin, and repaired to the army of Würtemberg, where he performed prodigies of valor. He returned to the Emperor after the campaign, his breast covered with decorations, and bearing a letter from the King of Würtemberg to His Majesty, who, after reading it, said to Vandamme: "Genera!, do not forget that if I love heroes, I do not love those who sleep while I am waiting for them." He shook hands with the General and invited him to breakfast with him in company with General Chardon, whom this return to favor rejoiced as much as it did his friend.

Before entering Augsburg the Emperor, who had started in advance, got so far ahead that his household could not catch up with him. He passed the night, without attendants or baggage, in the least wretched house of a very wretched village. When we reached His Majesty the next day, he laughed and threatened to have us hunted up as laggards by the gendarmerie.

From Augsburg the Emperor went to the camp before Ulm and made arrangements for assaulting that place. At a short distance from the city a terrible and stubborn combat took place between the French and the Austrians, and had lasted two hours, when shouts of Long live the Emperor! were suddenly heard. This name, which always carried terror to the enemy's ranks and courage to our own, electrified the soldiers to such a point that they routed the Austrians. The Emperor showed himself in the front line, shouting Forward! and beckoning to the soldiers to advance. From time to time his horse vanished in cannon smoke. During this furious charge the Emperor found himself near a badly wounded grenadier. Like the others, the brave fellow was shouting Forward! forward! The Emperor approached and throwing him his military cloak, said: "Try and bring it back to me; I will give you the cross you have just won in exchange for it." The grenadier, feeling himself mortally wounded, replied that the shroud he had just received was as good as a decoration, and expired, wrapped in the imperial mantle. When the combat was over, the Emperor had the grenadier, who was a veteran of the army of Egypt, lifted up, and caused him to be buried in this cloak.

Another soldier, not less courageous than the one of whom I have just spoken, also received marks of honor from His Majesty. On the day following the fight before Ulm, while the Emperor was visiting the ambulances, a cannoneer of light infantry who had but one thigh, and who was lustily shouting: Long live the Emperor! attracted his attention. He approached the soldier and said: "Is that all you have to say to me?" "No, Sire, I can inform you that I dismounted four pieces of Austrian cannon all alone, and it is the pleasure of seeing them defeated that makes me forget that I shall soon shut my eyes forever." The Emperor, moved by such firmness, gave his cross to the cannoneer, took the name of his parents, and said to him: "If you get over this, you go to the Hotel des Invalides." "Thanks, Sire, but I have bled too much; my board will not cost you very dear: I see that I shall have to come off guard, but long live the Emperor, all the same!" Unfortunately this brave man knew his condition but too well; he did not survive the amputation of his thigh.

We followed the Emperor to Ulm, after the occupation of the place, and we saw an army of more than thirty thousand men lay down their arms at the feet of His Majesty while defiling before him. I have never seen anything more imposing than this spectacle. The Emperor was on horseback, a few paces in front of his staff. His countenance was calm and grave, yet in spite of himself his glance betrayed his joy. He was constantly lifting his hat to return the salutes of the superior officers of the Austrian division.

When the imperial guard entered Augsburg, eighty grenadiers marched at the head of the columns, each carrying an enemy's flag. On arriving at Munich, the Emperor was received with the greatest attentions by his ally, the Elector of Bavaria. His Majesty went several times to the play and the chase, and gave a concert to the ladies of the court. As has since been learned, it was during this stay of the Emperor at Munich that the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia promised each other at Potsdam, over the tomb of Frederick II. to unite their efforts against His Majesty. A year later, the Emperor Napoleon likewise made a visit to the tomb of the great Frederick.

The taking of Ulm completed the defeat of the Austrians and opened the gates of Vienna to the Emperor; but the Russians advanced by forced marches to the relief of their allies. His Majesty went to meet them, and on December 1 the two armies found themselves face to face. By one of those chances peculiar to the Emperor, the date of the battle of Austerlitz was also that of his coronation.

I do not know why there was no tent at Austerlitz for the Emperor; the soldiers made a sort of barrack for him out of branches, with an opening in the top for the smoke to escape. For his bed the Emperor had nothing but straw; but he was so fatigued on the eve of the battle, after passing the day on horseback on the heights of Santon, that he was sleeping profoundly when General Savory, one of his aides-de-camp, entered to give him an account of a mission with which he had been charged. The General was obliged to touch his shoulder and push him in order to rouse him. Then he rose and remounted his horse to visit the outposts. The night was dark, but the camp was suddenly illumined as if by enchantment. Each soldier put a handful of straw on the end of his bayonet, and all these brands were lighted in less time than it takes to write it. The Emperor went through all the lines on horseback, speaking to the soldiers whom he recognized. "To-morrow, my heroes," he said to them, "be what you have always been and the Russians are ours and we shall keep them!" The air resounded with cries of Long live the Emperor! and there was neither officer nor soldier who did not count upon the morrow for a victory.

His Majesty, on visiting the line of attack, where provisions had been lacking for forty-eight hours,—a loaf of soldier's bread to each eight men being all that had been distributed that day,—saw as he passed from bivouac to bivouac the soldiers roasting potatoes in the ashes. Coming up to the first regiment of the line, of which his brother was colonel, the Emperor said to a grenadier of the second battalion, taking and eating one of the potatoes of the squad as he did so: "Are you content with these pigeons?" "Hum! they are always better than nothing; but such pigeons are certainly Lenten diet."—"Well, old fellow," returned His Majesty, pointing to the fires of the enemy, "help me to oust those b—— yonder and we shall spend Shrove Tuesday in Vienna."

The Emperor came back, lay down again, and slept until three o'clock in the morning. The servants were assembled around a bivouac fire near His Majesty's barrack; we were lying on the ground, wrapped in our cloaks, for the night was very cold. I had not closed my eyes in four days, and was beginning to drowse, when, toward three o'clock, the Emperor sent to ask me for some punch; I would have given the whole Austrian empire for another hour's sleep. I carried His Majesty the punch which I made by the bivouac fire; the Emperor made Marshal Berthier take some, and I shared the rest with the attendants. Between four and five o'clock, the Emperor ordered the first movements of his army. In a few minutes everybody was afoot, each at his post; aides-de-camp and orderlies could be seen galloping in all directions, and the battle opened at daybreak.

I shall enter into no details of this glorious day, which, according to the Emperor's own expression, terminated the campaign by a thunderstroke. Not one of His Majesty's combinations was a failure, and in a few hours the French were masters of the field of battle and of Germany entire. The brave General Rapp was wounded at Austerlitz, as in every other battle in which he figured. He was taken to the château of Austerlitz, and in the evening the Emperor went to see him and chatted with him for some time. His Majesty spent the night in the château.

Two days later, the Emperor Francis came to seek His Majesty and ask for peace. Before the end of December a treaty was concluded, by which the Elector of Bavaria and the Duke of Würtemberg, the faithful allies of the Emperor Napoleon, were created kings. In return for this elevation, which was due solely to him, His Majesty asked and obtained for Prince Eugène, Viceroy of Italy, the hand of the Princess Auguste-Amélie of Bavaria.

During his stay in Vienna, the Emperor had established his headquarters at Schönbrunn, which afterwards became celebrated by several sojourns of His Majesty, and which, they say, is now, by a singular destiny, the residence of his son.

I cannot be positive that it was during his first stay at Schönbrunn that the extraordinary meeting took place which I am about to relate. His Majesty, dressed as a colonel of chasseurs of the guard, rode on horseback every day. One morning while on the Vienna road, he saw an open carriage approaching in which were an ecclesiastic and a woman bathed in tears, whom he did not recognize. Drawing near the carriage, Napoleon saluted this lady and inquired the cause of her grief and the object of her journey. "Sir," said she, "I live in a village two leagues from here, in a house which has been pillaged by soldiers, and my gardener has been killed. I have come to ask a safeguard from your Emperor, who has known my family very well and is under great obligations to it."—"What is your name, Madame?" "De Bunny, I am the daughter of M. de Marbœuf, former governor of Corsica."—"I am delighted, Madame," returned Napoleon, "to find an occasion of being agreeable to you. I am the Emperor." Madame de Bunny was dumfounded. Napoleon reassured her and rode on, first begging her to go to his headquarters and wait for him. On his return he received her, treated her wonderfully well, gave her a detachment of the guard chasseurs for escort, and dismissed her happy and contented.

As soon as the battle of Austerlitz had been won, the Emperor made haste to send Moustache, the courier, to France to announce the tidings to the Empress. Her Majesty was at the château of Saint-Cloud. It was nine o'clock in the evening when loud shouts of joy and the noise of a horse arriving at a gallop were suddenly heard. The sound of bells and the repeated cracking of a whip announced a courier. The Empress, who was awaiting news from the army with keen impatience, rushed to the window and flung it open. The words victory and Austerlitz struck her ear. Impatient to know the details, she went down to the front steps, followed by her ladies. Moustache gave her a verbal account of the great news, and handed her the Emperor's letter. After reading it, Josephine drew a superb diamond ring from her finger and gave it to the courier. Poor Moustache had covered more than fifty leagues at a gallop that day, and he was so worn out that he had to be lifted from his horse. It took four persons to perform this operation and carry him to bed. His last horse, which had doubtless been less well cared for than the others, fell dead in the court of the château.