At Wagram I witnessed a trait which attests all the bounty and sensibility of the Emperor, of which I think I have given several proofs already; for if, in the story I am going to tell, he was compelled to deny himself an act of clemency, even his refusal brings out his admirable generosity and strength of soul.

A very wealthy lady, living near Caen, Madame de Combray, handed over her château to a band of Royalists who considered themselves to be serving their cause worthily by plundering stage-coaches on the high roads. She acted as treasurer to this body of partisans, and passed over the funds to a pretended treasurer of Louis XVIII. Her daughter, Madame Aquet, joined the band, dressed like a man, and distinguished herself by her audacity. But their exploits were not of long duration; pursued and seized by superior forces, they were brought to trial, and Madame Aquet was condemned to death along with her accomplices. She feigned pregnancy and obtained a reprieve, during which she tried every possible means to secure her pardon, but in vain. Finally, after eight months of useless solicitations, she determined to send her children to Germany to ask it from the Emperor in person. Her physician, her sister, and her two daughters arrived at Schönbrunn the day the Emperor was about to visit the field of Wagram. All day long, on the front steps of the palace, they awaited his return. The two children, one of whom was ten years old and the other twelve, inspired much interest; but their mother's crime was frightful, for if, in politics, no opinion as such is guilty, still, under whatever government, those should be punished who, for opinion's sake, become robbers and assassins. The children, dressed in mourning, threw themselves at the feet of the Emperor, crying: "Pardon, pardon, give us back our mother!" The Emperor raised them kindly, took the petition from the hands of their aunt, read the whole of it attentively, questioned the physician with interest . . . looked at the children . . . hesitated . . . but at the moment when I thought, as every one else did who was present at this touching scene, that he was about to pronounce the pardon, he drew back hastily, saying: "I cannot do it! . . ." I had seen the interior combat he was going through; several times he had changed color, his eyes were swimming in tears, his voice was changed. His refusal seemed to me an act of courage.

Close beside the souvenir of these acts of criminal violence, all the more to be condemned, perhaps, because they proceeded from a woman who, in order to commit them, must first have spurned the gentleness and modest virtues of her sex, I find in my notes a trait of fidelity and conjugal affection which might have merited a better fate. The wife of a colonel of infantry would never quit her husband. While the army was on the march, she followed the regiment in an open carriage; when there was fighting going on, she mounted a horse and kept as close as possible to the line. At Friedland she saw the colonel fall, pierced by a bullet; she ran to him with her servant, carried him out of the ranks herself, and brought him to the ambulance; but it was too late, he was dead. Her grief was silent; no one beheld her shed a tear. She offered her purse to a surgeon and besought him to embalm her husband's body. The operation was performed as well as possible. The corpse, wrapped in cloths, was put into a hinged casket and placed in her carriage. The despairing widow sat down beside it and resumed the road to France, but her suppressed grief soon deprived her of reason. At every station she would shut herself up with her precious charge, draw the body from the casket, place it on a bed, uncover the face, lavish on it the tenderest caresses, talk to it as if it were still living, and sleep beside it. In the morning she would replace her husband in the casket and continue on her way in dismal silence. Her secret was undiscovered for several days, but it was disclosed a few days before she arrived in Paris. The embalmment had not been performed in such a manner as to guarantee the body from putrefaction for a long period. This advanced to such a point that the frightful odor exhaled from the casket awakened suspicions in an inn where she was stopping: in the evening the room of this unhappy wife was entered and she was found holding in her arms the horribly disfigured body of her husband. . . "Silence!" she cried to the terror-stricken innkeeper, "my husband is asleep. . . . Why do you come to disturb his glorious slumber?" They had hard work to extricate the corpse from the embrace of this mad woman, and to conduct her to Paris, where she soon died, without having once regained her reason.

There was much surprise evinced at Schönbrunn at the non-appearance there of the Archduke Charles, whom we knew to be greatly esteemed by the Emperor, who never mentioned him but in terms expressive of the highest consideration. I am entirely ignorant of the motives which prevented this prince from coming to Schönbrunn, or the Emperor from receiving him there. However that may be, two or three days previous to the departure for Munich, His Majesty left the castle one morning for a hunt with several officers and me, and had us halt at a meet called the Vénerie, on the road from Vienna to Bukusdorf. On arriving, we found the Archduke Charles, who was awaiting His Majesty with only two members of his suite. The sovereign and the Archduke remained shut up in the pavilion for a long time, and it was very late when we returned to Schönbrunn.

The Emperor departed from this residence at noon, October 16. His Majesty's suite included Grand Marshal Duc de Frioul, Generals Rapp, Mouton, Savary, Nansouty, Durosnel, Lebrun, three chamberlains, M. Labbé, head of the topographic bureau, M. de Menneval, His Majesty's secretary, and M. Yvan. The Duc de Bassano and the Duc de Cadore, then minister of external relations, left with us.

We reached Passau in the morning of the 18th. The Emperor spent the entire day in visiting forts Maximilian and Napoleon, and seven or eight redoubts whose names recalled the principal events of the campaign. More than twelve thousand men were at work on these important constructions. His Majesty's visit was a fate for all these honest people. In the evening we set out again, and two days later we were in Munich.

At Augsburg, as he was coming out of the palace of the Elector of Treves, the Emperor saw a woman surrounded by four children kneeling in the street, where he would be obliged to pass her. He raised her, and kindly inquired what he could do for her. Without speaking, the poor woman handed to His Majesty a petition written in German, which General Rapp translated. She was the widow of a German physician named Buiting, recently deceased, who was known to the army for his zeal in assisting wounded Frenchmen when they happened to come in his way. The Elector of Treves and several members of the Emperor's suite earnestly supported the petition of Madame Buiting, whom the death of her husband had well-nigh reduced to poverty, and who asked His Majesty for some assistance for the children of the German physician whose exertions had saved the lives of several of his brave soldiers. His Majesty ordered the first yearly instalment of a pension, to which he instantly entitled her, to be paid to his petitioner on the spot. General Rapp having apprised the widow of what the Emperor had done for her, she uttered a cry of joy and fainted.

I was witness of another scene equally affecting. When the Emperor was marching on Vienna, the inhabitants of Augsburg, who had conducted themselves badly toward the Bavarians, were trembling lest His Majesty should resort to terrible reprisals. Their terror was at its height when it was learned that a part of the French army was to pass through the city. A young woman of remarkable beauty, who had been a widow for some months, had retired thither with her child, hoping to be more quiet there than elsewhere. Alarmed at the approach of the troops, she took her child in her arms and fled. But instead of avoiding our soldiers, she took a wrong gate and fell into the midst of the French outposts. General Lecourbe saw her trembling, distraught; and conjuring him to save her honor, even at the expense of her life, she fainted. Affected to tears, the General lavished attentions on her, and gave her a safe-conduct and an escort to accompany her to a neighboring city, where she said she had several relatives. The order to march was given at the same moment, and in the movements which it entailed the child was forgotten when the mother was removed, and it remained with the outposts. An honest grenadier took it, and inquiring where the poor mother had been taken, he promised himself to give it back to her as soon as possible, providing that a ball did not take him off before the return of the army. He had a leather pocket made, in which he carried his young protégé, under the shelter of his knapsack. Whenever he had to fight, the good grenadier made a hole in the ground, put the little one in it, and came for it again after the affair was over. His comrades jeered at him the first day, but they were not slow to comprehend the beauty of his action. The child escaped every danger, thanks to the continual cares of its adoptive father, and when they set out on the road to Munich the grenadier, who had become singularly attached to the poor little thing, almost regretted that the moment was approaching when he must restore it to its mother.

It is easy to comprehend what this unfortunate creature must have suffered after losing her child; she begged, she entreated the soldiers escorting her to retrace their steps, but they had orders, and nothing could induce them to infringe them. Hardly had she reached her place of destination when she returned to Augsburg, and made inquiries in all directions; no one could give her any information. She believed her son was dead, and bitterly deplored him. She had been mourning thus for nearly six months when the army again passed through Augsburg. She was at work in her room when some one came to tell her that a soldier was asking to see her, that he had something precious to return to her, but that, as he could not leave his corps, he begged her to come and find him on the place. Not dreaming of such a happiness, she came and asked for the grenadier. The latter quitted his rank, and taking the little man out of his knapsack, he put him into the arms of his mother, who could not believe the testimony of her own eyes. Thinking that perhaps this lady was not rich, this excellent man had made a collection amounting to twenty-five louis, which he had placed in one of the little fellow's pockets.

The Emperor remained only a short time at Munich. On the day of his arrival, a courier was despatched by the grand marshal to M. de Luçay, to apprise him that His Majesty would be at Fontainebleau the 27th of October, probably in the evening, and that his household and that of the Empress must be at that residence to receive His Majesty. But instead of arriving on the 27th, the Emperor travelled with such rapidity that he was at the gate of the palace of Fontainebleau by ten o'clock in the morning, October 26, so that with the exception of the grand marshal, a courier, and the concierge of Fontainebleau, he found no one to receive him when he alighted from his carriage. This very natural disappointment, since nobody could foresee that he would be a day ahead of time, put the Emperor in a very bad humor; he looked all around as if searching for somebody to scold, and seeing that the courier was about to descend from his horse, on which he was rather glued than seated, he said to him: "Rest yourself to-morrow; hasten to Saint-Cloud and announce my arrival," and the poor courier galloped off again in the finest style.

The fault which dissatisfied His Majesty so keenly could not be attributed by him to any person; for, by order of the grand marshal, which was that of the Emperor, M. de Luçay had commanded the attendants of Their Majesties to be in readiness early the next morning; it was therefore that evening, at soonest, that they could arrive. It was necessary to wait till then.

Meanwhile, the Emperor began to visit the new apartments which he had had built in the château. The building in the court of the Cheval-Blanc, formerly used by the Military School, had been restored, enlarged, and decorated with extraordinary magnificence. It had been entirely converted into apartments of honor, in order, said His Majesty, to give employment to the manufactories of Lyons, which had been deprived of their foreign markets by the war. After having gone round and round them, the Emperor sat down, exhibiting signs of the greatest impatience; he was constantly inquiring what time it was, or else looking at his watch; at last he ordered me to get ready what he needed for writing, and sat down at a small table, quite alone, inwardly swearing, no doubt, at his secretaries who did not come.

At five o'clock there came a carriage from Saint-Cloud. The Emperor, hearing it roll into the court, ran down precipitately, and while a footman opened the door and let down the steps, he said to the persons inside: "And the Empress?" They replied that Her Majesty the Empress had despatched them not more than a quarter of an hour ahead of her. "That is very lucky!" returned the Emperor, and turning round abruptly, he went upstairs again to the small library where he had begun to work.

At last the Empress arrived, just as it was about to strike six; it was quite dark. This time the Emperor did not go down. He inquired what it was he heard, and learning that Her Majesty had come, he kept on writing, without disturbing himself to go and receive her. It was the first time he had acted thus. The Empress found him sitting in his library. "Ah!" said His Majesty, "there you are, Madame; you do well, for I was just about to go to Saint-Cloud." And the Emperor, who had lifted his eyes from his work to fix them on the Empress, lowered them again when he finished speaking. This severe reception wounded Josephine greatly; she tried to excuse herself. His Majesty responded in a way that brought tears to her eyes, but he speedily repented and begged her pardon, acknowledging that he was in the wrong.