In view of the fact that the Empress was willing to disobey her august spouse by wearing clothes made of prohibited material, and that a colonel was willing to slip contraband into my coach without my knowledge, the trick which I had played seemed to me to be excusable. In any case, since it was June, the soaking which I had caused these Mainz officials to undergo would do no harm except to their clothes. When I was far from Mainz, I could still hear the sound of drums, and I learned afterwards that they had stayed up all night. The Emperor arrived two days later, but as he had had an accident to his coach, the good citizens of Mainz blamed that for the delay of which their fine clothes were the victims. I was heading swiftly and happily towards Paris, when a most disagreeable accident interrupted my progress, and turned my happiness to annoyance. You will understand that when a sovereign travels, it would be impossible to supply a change of horses for the numerous carriages which precede and follow him, if the staging posts were not reinforced by horses, known as "de tournee", brought from posts established on other routes. Now, as I was leaving Dombasle, a little town this side of Verdun, a confounded postilion "de tournee" who had arrived the night before, not having noticed a steep hill which one encounters after leaving the staging post, lost control of his horses during the descent and overturned my carriage, breaking the springs and the bodywork. To make matters worse, it was a Sunday and all the population had gone to a fete in a neighbouring village, so that I could not find a workman. Those that I found the next day were so unskillful that I had to spend two mortal days in this miserable place.

I was about to set out again when an outrider having announced the arrival of the Emperor, I took the liberty of stopping his coach to tell him of the accident which I had suffered. He laughed, took back the letter for the Empress which he had given me, and went on his way. I followed him to St. Cloud, from where, after giving the portfolios to the cabinet secretary, I went to my mother's home in Paris.

I took up once more my position as aide-de-camp to Marshal Augereau, a very easy task, as it consisted of going every month to spend one or two weeks at La Houssaye, where daily life was always so amusing. Thus rolled by the end of the summer and the autumn; during which time the Emperor's policies were leading towards fresh events and storms whose terrible commotions would nearly swallow me up; me, a very small personage, who, in his carefree youth, thought of nothing but enjoying life, after having seen death at such close quarters.

It has been rightly said that the Emperor was never so great and powerful as in 1807, when, after defeating the Austrians, the Russians and the Prussians, he had concluded a peace so favourable to France and to himself. But scarcely had Napoleon ended his war against the northern powers, when his evil genius drove him to undertake one even more terrible, in the south of Europe, in the Iberian peninsula.

End of Volume 1, The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot.
Translated by Oliver C. Colt

The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot. Translated by
Oliver C. Colt

Contents of Volume 2.

Chap. 1. My marriage. Farewell to Massena.

Chap. 2. Biography of Massena.

Chap. 3. 1812. Appointed to 23rd Chasseurs. The intrigues of
Count Czernicheff.