Meanwhile the First Consul had changed his arrangements with regard to the Army of Portugal. He entrusted the command of it to his brother-in-law, General Leclerc, 1 and retained Bernadotte with the Army of the West. Consequently when my brother and the other aides-de-camp had rejoined the staff at Tours they received orders almost directly to return to Brittany and remove to Brest, whither the general was about to proceed. It is a long journey, especially when one travels by fixed marches; but it was the fine time of year, we were young, and there were plenty of us, so the way was merry enough. Being unable to ride, owing to an injury which I had accidentally received in the hip, I went in one of the general's carriages. Him we found at Brest.

In the harbour of Brest were not only a great number of French vessels, but also a Spanish fleet, commanded by Admiral Gravina. He was killed afterwards at Trafalgar where the combined fleets of France and Spain fought that of England under the celebrated Nelson, who also lost his life in the engagement. At the time of our arrival at Brest, the fleets were intended to take General Bernadotte and a strong expeditionary force of French and Spaniards over to Ireland. This plan was never carried out, but in the meantime the presence of so many officers, naval and military, kept the town of Brest very lively. The commander-in-chief and many generals and admirals kept open house, and the soldiers of the two nations were on the most friendly terms; so that I made the acquaintance of several Spanish officers.

We were very well off at Brest, till the commander-in-chief thought it wiser to retransfer the head-quarters to Rennes, a dull town, but more central for his district. No sooner had we got settled there than what I had foreseen happened. The First Consul reduced the number of aides-de-camp which the general might keep on his staff. He was to have only one colonel and five officers of lower rank; no more provisional aides-de-camp. Accordingly I received notice that I was to be attached to a light cavalry regiment. I could have made up my mind to it well enough if it had been to return to the 1st Hussars, where I was known, and of which I still wore the uniform; but it was more than a year since I had left the regiment, and the colonel had filled up my place. The Minister sent me a commission in the 25th Mounted Chasseurs, which had just entered Spain and was marching on the Portuguese frontier, in the direction of Salamanca and Zamora. I felt keenly the injury that Bernadotte had done me in misleading me by false promises; for otherwise I should either have been a regular member of Masséna's staff in Italy, or have resumed my place in the 1st Hussars. Discontented as I was, I was bound to obey orders; and my first impulse of ill-humour past--they pass quickly at that age--I was in a hurry to be on the road and get away from the general against whom I had a grievance. My father had often lent him money, especially when he was buying his estate at Lagrange; but, though he knew that his old friend's son, hardly well of a recent injury, had to traverse a great part of France and the whole of Spain, and buy new uniforms into the bargain, he never offered to advance me a sou; and, short of money as I was, I would not have asked him to do so for all the world. But, luckily for me, there was at Rennes an old uncle of my mothers, M. de Verdal of Gruniac, formerly paymaster in the Penthièvre regiment of foot. It was with him that my mother had lived during the first years of the Revolution. This old gentleman, though somewhat eccentric, was very kind; not only did he advance me the money of which I stood in great need, but he gave me some out of his own purse.

The chasseurs at that period wore the hussar-jacket, except that it was green; but none the less I was foolish enough to shed a few tears when I had to abandon the Bereheny uniform and give up the name of hussar for that of chasseur. I took leave pretty coldly of Bernadotte. He gave me letters of introduction to Lucien Bonaparte, then ambassador at Madrid, and to General Leclerc, commanding the Army of Portugal.

On the day of my departure all the aides-de-camp gave me a breakfast, and I set out with a heavy heart. Two days' journey brought me to Nantes, tired to death, with much pain in my side, and convinced that I should never have endurance enough to ride the 450 leagues which lay between me and the frontier of Portugal. As good luck would have it, at Nantes, in the house of one of my schoolfellows of Sorèze, I found a Spanish officer, by name Don Rafael, who was going to the dépôt of his regiment in Estremadura. We arranged that I should show him the way as far as the Pyrenees, and that from that point he should assume the direction of the journey so far as our ways lay together.

We passed through La Vendée by coach. Every market-town and village still bore the traces of burning, though two years had passed since the end of the civil war. It was a painful sight. We visited La Rochelle, Rochefort, and Bordeaux. From the last place to Bayonne we travelled in carriages with four places, which never went out of a walk through the sandy Landes. We often got out, and, walking merrily forward, would go and rest under some clump of pines. As we sat in the shade Don Rafael would take his guitar and sing. In this way we reached Bayonne in five or six days.

Before crossing the Pyrenees I had to present myself to the general commanding at Bayonne, whose name was Ducos; an excellent man, who had served under my father. He took an interest in me, and was anxious that I should delay entering Spain for a few days, as he had just learnt that a band of brigands had been rifling some travellers not far from the frontier. At all times, even before the War of Independence, their adventurous and yet indolent character has given the Spaniards a decided taste for brigandage, which has been further encouraged by the division of the country into several kingdoms once independent states, and still preserving their own laws, fashions, and frontiers. In some of these ancient states there are customs-duties; others, like Biscay and Navarre, are exempt. The consequence is, that the inhabitants of the provinces which enjoy free trade are always trying to smuggle forbidden wares into those whose frontiers are guarded by lines of well-armed and brave preventive men. The smugglers, on their side, have from time immemorial been quite ready to employ force where craft does not succeed; nor is their trade in any way discreditable in Spanish eyes, being considered a righteous warfare against the abuse of customs-duties. To plan expeditions and carry them out without concealment, to take military precautions, to hide in the mountains, resting, smoking, sleeping--such is the life of the smugglers. The large profits on a single successful operation put them in a position to live at their ease and do nothing for several months. When, however, the custom-house people have beaten them in one of their frequent fights, and captured their convoy of merchandise, the smugglers, brought to bay, have no scruple about turning highwaymen. They exercise their calling with much good-feeling, for they never murder travellers, and as a rule leave them money enough to continue their journey. They had just treated an English family in this fashion; and General Ducos, wishing to spare us the inconvenience of being plundered, had intended to delay our departure. Don Rafael, however, remarked that he knew the ways of Spanish brigands well enough to be certain that the safest time to travel through a given district was when the bands had just committed an offence against the law, because at such times they get out of the way for a while. So the general sanctioned our departure.

At the time of which I am speaking carriage-horses were quite unknown in Spain, all carriages, even those of the King, being drawn by mules. Coaches there were none, and for posting there were only saddle-horses, so that the very greatest nobles who had their own carriages were compelled when they travelled to hire mules and go by short day's journeys. Well-to-do travellers hired carriages which did not do more than ten leagues in the day; the poorer people joined one of the caravans of donkey-drivers who transported goods after the fashion of our carriers; but nobody travelled alone, partly by reason of the highwaymen, but also for the low esteem in which this mode of travelling was held. After our arrival at Bayonne, Don Rafael, who now had the direction of our journey, told me that, as we were neither sufficiently great people to hire a carriage and a team of mules for ourselves, nor paupers enough to go with the ass-drivers, the only alternative left was to ride post or to take places in a hired carriage. Riding post, which I have since often done, did not suit me, because it was impossible to take our baggage with us; it was decided, then, that we had to go by public carriage. Don Rafael made terms with an individual who, in consideration of 800 francs apiece, undertook to carry us to Salamanca, providing our board and lodging at his own cost. I thought this very dear, for it was double what a similar journey would have cost in France, and I had just had to spend a good deal of money on the journey to Bayonne; but it was the regular price, and thee was no other way of getting to my new regiment, so I accepted the terms.

We started in an immense old coach, three places in which were occupied by an inhabitant of Cadiz with his wife and daughter. A prior of Benedictines from the University of Salamanca made up the tale of passengers. Everything in this journey was naturally new to me. To begin with, the team astonished me much. It consisted of six splendid mules, of which, to my great surprise, the wheelers alone had reins and bridles. The other four went free, guided by the voice of the driver and his zagal, or teamster. The former, perched in lordly style on a huge box, gave his orders gravely to the zagal, who, nimble as a squirrel, would often do more than a league on foot, running beside the mules at full trot; then in the twinkling of an eye he would climb on to the box beside his master, only to get down and get up again, and that twenty times during the journey. He would run round the carriage and the team to make sure that nothing was out of place, and as he performed this exercise he was continually singing to encourage his mules, each of which he would call by her name; he never struck them, his voice being sufficient to stimulate any one who was slackening her pace.

The performances, and especially the songs, of this man were a great amusement to me. I took also much interest in the conversation that went on in the carriage; for though I spoke no Spanish, what I knew of Latin and Italian made me able to understand my companions, and I answered them in French, which they understood fairly well. The five Spaniards--even the two ladies and the monk--soon lighted up their cigars. I regretted that I had not yet acquired the habit of smoking. We were all in good humour; Don Rafael, the ladies, and even the stout Benedictine used to sing in chorus. We generally started betimes, and used to stop from one to three to dine, rest the mules, and let the heat of the day go by. During this we slept, or, as the Spaniards call it, made our siesta. Then we went on to our sleeping-place. The meals were plentiful enough, but the flavour of the Spanish cookery seemed to me at first horrible; however, I ended by getting used to it, but I never could reconcile myself to the dreadful beds which were offered to us in the posadas, or inns. They were truly disgusting, as Don Rafael, who had just passed a year in France, was compelled to admit. To avoid this inconvenience, on the first day of entering Spain I asked to sleep on a truss of straw. Unhappily, I learnt that a truss of straw was a thing unknown in this country, since, instead of threshing the sheaves, they are trampled out by mules, whereby the straw is reduced to small pieces of hardly more than half a finger's-length. I had the brilliant idea of getting a great sack filled with this chopped straw; then, placing it in a barn, I slept on it wrapped in my cloak, and thus escaped the vermin with which the beds and the rooms were infested. In the morning I emptied my sack and placed it in the carriage, and in this fashion, by getting it filled at each sleeping-place, I had a clean mattress. My invention was imitated by Don Rafael.

We traversed the mountainous provinces of Navarre, Biscay, and Alava; then we crossed the Ebro and entered the vast plains of Castile. We saw Burgos and Valladolid and after fifteen days' journey reached Salamanca. There I parted, not without regret, from my pleasant travelling-companion Don Rafael, whom I was to meet again later on in the same regions during the War of Independence. General Leclerc was at Salamanca; he received me most kindly, and even proposed that I should stay with him as supernumerary aide-de-camp; but my recent experience had shown me that, although service on the staff offers more advantages in the way of liberty than service with the regiment, this is only when one holds the position of a regular aide-de-camp otherwise all the tiresome duties fall to your share, and you have only a very uncertain position. I refused, therefore, the favour which the commander-in-chief offered me, and asked leave to do duty with my regiment. It was just as well that I acted in this way, for in the following year the general, having got the command of the expedition to San Domingo, took with him a lieutenant who had accepted the place which I refused, and all the staff officers, as well as the general, died of the yellow fever.

I found the 25th Chasseurs at Salamanca. The colonel, M. Moreau, a very kind old officer, and my new comrades received me well, and in a few days I was on the best terms with them all. I was introduced to the society of the town; for at that time the position of a Frenchman in Spain was pleasant enough, and quite unlike what it afterwards became. In fact, in 1801 we were allies of the Spaniards; we came to fight on their behalf against the Portuguese and English, and so they treated us as friends. The French officers were lodged with the most wealthy inhabitants; there was quite a competition to take us in; we were received everywhere, and overwhelmed with invitations. Admitted thus familiarly into the homes of the Spaniards, we were able to form a much better idea of their character in a short time than those officers could do in several years who did not come to the Peninsula until the War of Independence. I lodged with a professor of the University, who put me in a very pleasant room looking out on the fine square. My regimental duties were light, and left me plenty of leisure, of which I availed myself to study the Spanish language, which, to my thinking, is the most stately and the finest in Europe. At Salamanca I met for the first time the celebrated General Lasalle, then colonel of the 10th Hussars: he sold me a horse.

The 15,000 French sent into the Peninsula, under General Leclerc, formed the right wing of the Spanish grand army, commanded by the Prince of the Peace, under whose orders they therefore were. He came one day to review us. This favourite of the Queen of Spain was at that time practically king. He seemed to me very well satisfied with his personal appearance, although he was small of stature and of no distinction; still he lacked neither elegance nor ability. He ordered our division forward, and my regiment went to Toro, and then to Zamora. At first I regretted Salamanca, but we were very well off in the other towns, and especially at Zamora. There I lodged with a rich merchant, whose house had a splendid garden, where a numerous company used to meet in the evening for music and conversation, amid shrubberies of pomegranates, myrtles, and lemon-trees. It is hard to appreciate thoroughly the beauties of nature unless one knows these delicious nights of Southern lands.

Nevertheless, we had to tear ourselves from this agreeable life to go and attack the Portuguese. We invaded their territory, and got the best of them in several trifling affairs. The French division marched upon Viseu, while the Spanish army descended the Tagus and entered the Alemtejo. We counted on shortly entering Lisbon as conquerors; but the Prince of the Peace, who had without due consideration summoned the troops into the Peninsula, became, with no more consideration, alarmed at their presence, and in order to get rid of them concluded a treaty of peace with Portugal without the knowledge of the First Consul. He was clever enough to get this ratified by the French ambassador Lucien Bonaparte, which irritated the First Consul considerably, and from that day dated the enmity of the two brothers. The French troops remained some months longer in Portugal, till the beginning of 1802. We then returned to Spain, and revisited our pleasant garrisons of Zamora, Toro, and Salamanca, where we had always been so well received. This time I traversed Spain on horseback with my regiment, and had no longer to dread the horrible beds of the posadas, since we were billeted every night in the most well-to-do houses. This marching by stages when one goes with a regiment and in fine weather is not wanting in a certain charm: one is always changing the scene without leaving one's companions; one gets a detailed view of the country; one chats as one goes along; at meals, whether good or bad, one has company; and one is in a good position for observing the ways of the inhabitants. Our chief amusement of an evening was to see the Spaniards, roused from their languor, dance fandangos and boleros with perfect grace and agility. The colonel often offered them the band, but they preferred, with reason, their guitars, castanets, and women's voices--an accompaniment which does not take away the national character from their dance. These impromptu open-air balls of the working-class in town and country alike had such a charm for us, though only as spectators, that we were sorry to leave them behind. After more than a month's march we re-crossed the Bidassoa; and though my stay in Spain had given me nothing but satisfaction, I was pleased to see France again.