After distributing the crosses at Paris, the Emperor visited the camp at Boulogne for the same purpose. The army was drawn up in a semi-circle on an open Space fronting the sea; it was an imposing ceremony. The Emperor appeared for the first time on a throne, surrounded by his marshals. The enthusiasm was indescribable. The English fleet, perceiving the ceremony, sent some vessels of light draught to disturb it by a cannonade; but our coast batteries replied actively. At the end of the ceremony, the Emperor, returning to Boulogne, followed by his marshals and a numerous train, halted behind the batteries, and calling General Marmont, who had served in the artillery, said: 'Let us see if we recollect our old trade, and which of us can send a shell on to that English brig which has come so close to tease us.' Then the Emperor, motioning to one side the corporal of artillery in charge of the piece, laid the mortar; they fired, and the shell, grazing the sails of the brig, fell into the sea. General Marmont laid the gun in his turn, also came near the mark, but also did not touch the brig, which, seeing the battery full of generals, fired with double rapidity. 'Come, take your place again,' said Napoleon to the corporal. He in his turn aimed, and dropped the shell right in the middle of the brig. Pierced through and through by the great projectile, the vessel filled in an instant, and sank in a stately way in sight of the whole French army. Enchanted by the fortunate omen, the soldiers broke out into loud cheers, while the English fleet made all sail away. The Emperor congratulated the corporal of artillery, and decorated him on the spot with his own hands. 1

I too had a share in the favours distributed that day. I had been sub-lieutenant five years and a half, and had made several campaigns. At Augereau's request the Emperor appointed me lieutenant. For a moment, however, I thought he was going to refuse me this promotion; for, remembering that a Marbot had figured as Bernadotte's aide-de-camp in the Rennes conspiracy, he frowned when the marshal mentioned me to him, and said, looking steadily at me: 'Is it you who --------?' 'No, sir; it is not I who --------' answered I, briskly. 'Oh! you're the good one, the Genoa and Marengo one--I make you lieutenant.' The Emperor also granted me a place in the military school at Fontainebleau for my young brother Felix, and from this day forward he never again mixed me up with my elder brother, who was always an object of his dislike, though he had done nothing to deserve it.

The troops of the 7th corps not being yet assembled in camp, there was little for Augereau to do at Brest. He obtained leave, therefore, to pass the rest of the summer and the autumn at his pretty estate of La Houssaye, near Tournau, in Brie. I rather think that the Emperor was better pleased to know that he was there than at the further end of Brittany at the head of a large army; but Napoleon's suspicion as to any lack of devotion on the part of Augereau had no foundation whatever, and arose from the underhand dealings of a certain General S----. This person was a major-general, serving with the 7th corps. He had plenty of talent, and unbounded ambition, but such a bad reputation for honesty that no general officer would rub shoulders with him. Piqued at seeing himself thus cut by his comrades, and wishing to be revenged, he caused a letter to reach the Emperor in which he denounced all the generals of the 7th corps, the marshal among them, as conspirators against the Empire. I must do Napoleon the justice of saying that he did not employ any secret means of ascertaining the truth, contenting himself with passing S----'s letter on to Augereau. The marshal believed himself able to assert that nothing serious was taking place in his army; still, as he knew that several generals and colonels talked sometimes without consideration, he resolved to put a stop to this state of things. Fearing, however, to compromise the very officers to whom he only wished to give a wigging, he thought it better to send what he had to say by an aide-de-camp, and was good enough to entrust this important errand to me. I left La Houssaye in hot August weather, rode post-haste the 160 leagues which lie between that chateau and the town of Brest, and back again after only twenty-four hours' stay. I arrived completely tired out for I think there is no more laborious business than posting on horseback. I had found the state of things a good deal more serious than the marshal thought; there really was a considerable ferment in the army. Before I returned to La Houssaye, however, the message which I bore had tranquillised the minds of the generals, who were nearly all devoted to the marshal.

I was just beginning to recover from the dreadful fatigue I had undergone, when one morning the marshal told me that the generals wanted to kick out S---- for a spy. He added that he absolutely must send an aide-de-camp, and that he had come to ask me if I felt in a condition to repeat my post-haste ride; he would not order me, but would refer the question to me to decide if I could do it. I admit that if there had been any reward, even a promotion to be gained, I should have declined; but it was a question of being of service to my father's friend, the marshal, who had so kindly taken me up; so, without hesitation, I said that I would start in an hour. My only anxiety was whether I should be able to post 320 leagues again on horseback, so tiring is this mode of travelling. However, I got into the way of stopping two hours in every twenty-four, lying down in the straw in the stable of every post-house. It was frightfully hot; still, I got to Brest, and returned without accident, having thus ridden post 640 leagues within one month. I had at least the satisfaction of being able to tell the marshal that the generals would confine themselves to letting S---- know what they thought of him. Having thus fallen into discredit, General S---- deserted to England, married there, although he had a wife already, was condemned to the galleys for bigamy, escaped, and, twenty years' wandering about Europe, died in penury.

After my second return from Brest the good Marshal Augereau showed a redoubled liking for me, and, in order to prove it by putting me in direct relations with the Emperor, he selected me in September to go to Fontainebleau to fetch Napoleon and escort him to the château of La Houssaye, where he came and passed twenty-four hours, accompanied by several marshals. It was while walking with them there that the Emperor, after imparting to them his views as to the way in which he wished to keep up his dignity and theirs, presented each of them with the sum necessary to buy a house in Paris. Marshal Augereau bought the Hotel Rocheshouart, situated in the Rue de Grenelle Saint-Germain, which is now used as the office of Public Instruction. It is a splendid house; but the marshal preferred to stay at La Houssaye, where he lived in fine style, for, besides his aides-de-camp, each of whom had his apartments, there was always a great number of guests. We enjoyed perfect liberty, and the marshal let us do anything, provided that there was no noise near the wing of the château occupied by his wife.

'I'his excellent lady, always an invalid, lived very much by herself, and seldom appeared in the dining-room or drawing-room; but when she did come, so far from being a constraint on our mirth, she delighted to encourage it. She had with her two very extraordinary lady companions. The first always wore men's clothes, and was known by the name of 'Free-and-Easy.' She was the daughter of one of the leaders who defended Lyons against the Convention in 1793. She escaped with her father; they both disguised themselves as soldiers, and took refuge in the ranks of the 9th regiment of dragoons, passing by military nicknames and going on campaign Miss 'Free-and-Easy,' who to a general masculine appearance united a most masculine courage, received several wounds, one at Castiglione, where her regiment formed part of Augereau's division. General Bonaparte was often witness to the prowess of this intrepid woman, and when he became First Consul he granted her a pension and gave her a post about his wife. But court life hardly suited her, so she left Madame Bonaparte, who, by mutual consent, made her over to Madame Augereau to be secretary and reader. The second lady about the maréchale was the widow of the sculptor Adam, and, though eighty years old, was the life and soul of the château. Broad fun and hoaxes were the order of the day at this period, especially at La Houssaye, the master of which was never so happy as when he saw his guests and the young people of his staff alive with merriment.

In November the marshal returned to Paris. The date of the Emperor's coronation was approaching, and the Pope was already at the Tuileries for the ceremony. A crowd of magristrates and deputations from the different departments had been summoned to the capital; there were also all the colonels of the army, with detachments from their regiments, to whom the Emperor distributed on the Champ de Mars those eagles which have since been so celebrated. Paris was splendid with a display of a luxury hitherto unknown. The coronation took place on the 2nd of December. I need not describe the ceremony, for this has been often done. Some days afterwards the marshals gave a ball to the Emperor and Empress. As you know, there were eighteen of them. Marshal Duroc, although he was only Prefect of the Palaces, joined with them, which brought the number of the contributors up to nineteen, each of whom paid 25,000 francs towards the expenses. The ball took place in the great hall of the Opera; nothing so magnificent was ever seen. General Samson, of the engineers, was the manager; the marshals aides-de-camp were the stewards, charged with doing the honours and distributing tickets. All Paris wanted to be there, and the aides-de-camp were assailed with letters and requests. I never had so many friends. Everything passed with the most perfect order, and the Emperor appeared satisfied.

In the midst of these festivities opened the year 1805, which was to be so prolific of great events. To give his army a share in the general rejoicing, Marshal Augereau repaired to Brest, where, in spite of the rigours of winter, he gave magnificent balls, and entertained in turn the officers and even a good many of the soldiers. In the first days of spring he returned to La Houssaye, to await the moment of the invasion of England.

This expedition, though often spoken of as chimerical, was nevertheless on the point of coming off. An English squadron of about fifteen vessels, cruising continually in the Channel, rendered it impossible to transport the French army in boats and pinnaces, which would have sunk at the least touch from large vessels. But the Emperor was able to dispose of sixty sail of the line, French and allied, which were distributed through the ports of Brest, L'Orient, Rochefort, Ferrol, and Cadiz. His notion was to assemble them unexpectedly in the Channel, to crush by an overwhelming force the small squadron which the English had there, and thus to be able to command the passage, were it but for three days.

To this end the Emperor ordered Admiral Villeneuve, commander-in-chief of the naval forces, to send at once every available vessel out of the ports of France and Spain, with orders to sail not for Boulogne, but for Martinique, where it was certain that the English fleet would follow them. While it was hastening off to the Antilles, Villeneuve was to leave those islands before it came up, to sail back round the north of Scotland, and return to the Channel by its upper end. With his sixty vessels he would easily beat the fifteen which the English kept in front of Boulogne, and put Napoleon in command of the passage. The English, on reaching Martinique, not finding Villeneuve's fleet there, would have felt about before starting in pursuit of him, and thus lost precious time. Only part of this fine plan was carried out. Villeneuve started not with sixty, but with something over thirty ships, and reached Martinique. The English, falling into the trap, hastened to the Antilles just as Villeneuve had started back; but the French admiral, instead of returning by Scotland, sailed for Cadiz in order to effect a junction with the Spanish fleet, as if thirty ships were not enough to defeat or drive off the fifteen ships of the English. Nor was that all; Villeneuve lost much time at Cadiz in repairing his ships, during which the enemy's fleet also got back to Europe, and cruised off Cadiz. Finally, the equinoctial gales rendered egress from the port difficult, and Villeneuve found himself blockaded. Thus collapsed the Emperor's ingenious combination. 2Realising that the English would not fall into the trap again, he renounced, or postponed indefinitely, his plan of invading Great Britain, and turned his eyes again towards the Continent.

But before relating the chief events in this long war, and the part which I took in it, I must mention a sad disaster which befell our family. My brother Felix, who was in the military school at Fontainebleau, was a little near-sighted, and for this reason had had doubts about entering the army. Once decided, however, he worked so strenuously that he soon became sergeant-major, a difficult post to fill in a school. The mischievous pupils had got a habit, when they had been constructing a redoubt, of burying under the earth of the embankment the tools which were given them for their work. General Bellavère, the head of the school, a severe man, ordered that the tools were to be given to, and accounted for by, the sergeant-majors, who thus became responsible for them. One day when they were at work, my brother, seeing a pupil bury a pickaxe, took notice of it. The other replied very rudely, adding that in a few days they would leave the school, that he would then be the equal of his former sergeant-major, and would call him to account for the reprimand. My brother was offended, and declared that it was not necessary to wait so long. For want of swords, they used compasses fastened to the end of sticks. Jacqueminot, afterwards lieutenant-general, was Felix's second. In spite of my brother's short sight, which put him at a disadvantage, he wounded his adversary, and himself got a thrust through the right arm. His comrades dressed it secretly. Unhappily, non-commissioned officers are bound to carry their weapon in their right hand; and, as bad luck would have it, the Emperor came to Fontainebleau, and made them drill for some hours under a roasting sun. My poor brother, always on the run, with his right arm constantly stretched by the weight of a heavy musket, was overcome by the heat, and his wound reopened. He might have pleaded indisposition, and fallen out; but he was in presence of the Emperor, who at the end of the performance was to distribute the much-coveted sub-lieutenants' commissions. Felix made superhuman efforts to conquer the pain, but at length his strength gave way: he fell, and was carried away in a dying state. General Bellavère wrote curtly to my mother, 'If you want to see your son, come quickly, for he has only a few hours to live.' Her despair was so overwhelming that she could not go to Fontainebleau, but I posted thither at once. On arriving, I learnt that my brother was no more. Marshal Augereau was as kind as possible to us in our sorrow, and the Emperor sent Duroc, Marshal of the Palace, with a special message of condolence to my mother. Soon, however, a new grief was to beset her, for I had to leave her. A Continental war had broken out.

The cause of the war was as follows. At the moment when the Emperor most needed to be at peace with the Continental Powers, for the execution of his plan of invading England, he issued a decree uniting Genoa to France. This served the turn of the English admirably. They profited by his action to alarm all the Continental nations, representing that Napoleon aspired to a general attack on the whole of Europe. Russia and Austria declared war against us; Prussia, with more circumspection, prepared for war, but as yet did not declare. The Emperor doubtless had foreseen this hostile movement, and the desire to bring matters to a crisis was perhaps his reason for taking possession of Genoa. The hope that Villeneuve might make himself master for a few days of the Channel, by uniting the whole French and Spanish fleets, was at an end. A Continental war was the best means of escaping from the ridicule and appearance of impotence as regarded England, which the failure of the invasion scheme, after three years' open preparation had brought upon his arms. The new coalition came just at the right moment to get him out of an annoying position.

Three years in camps had had an excellent result on our troops. Never had France possessed an army so well trained, of such good material, so eager for fighting and fame. Never had a general had under his hand forces so powerful both materially and intellectually, with such capacity for using them. Napoleon, therefore, accepted the war with joy, so certain was he of victory, so confident that he would use his enemies' mistakes to strengthen his throne. He knew how the chivalrous spirit of Frenchmen has in all ages been influenced by the enthusiasm of military glory.