Some minutes before noon we entered the Place du Carrousel, now thronged with equipages and led horses. Officers in the rich uniforms of every arm of the service were pressing their way to the Palace, amid the crash of carriages, the buzz of recognitions, and the thundering sounds of the brass band, whose echo was redoubled beneath the vaulted vestibule of the Palace.
Borne along with the torrent, we mounted the wide stair and passed from room to room, until we arrived at the great antechamber where the officers of the household were assembled in their splendid dresses. Here the crowd was so dense we were unable to move on for some time, and it was after nearly an hour's waiting that we at last found ourselves within that gorgeous gallery named by the Emperor “La Salle des Maréchaux.” At any other moment my attention had been riveted upon the magnificence and beauty of this great salon—its pictures, its gildings, the richness of the hangings, the tasteful elegance of the ceiling, with its tracery of dull gold, the great works of art in bronze and marble that adorned it on every side,—but now my mind took another and very different range. Here around me were met the greatest generals and warriors of Europe,—the names second alone to his who had no equal. There stood Ney, with his broad, retiring forehead, and his eyes black and flashing, like an eagle's. With what energy he spoke! how full of passionate vigor that thick and rapid utterance, that left a tremulous quivering on his lip even when he ceased to speak! What a contrast to the bronzed, unmoved features of the large man he addressed, and who listened to him with such deference of manner: his yellow mustache bespeaks not the Frenchman; he is a German, by blood at least,—for it is Kellerman, the colonel of the curassiers of the Guard. And yonder was Soult, with his strong features seamed by many a day of hardship, the centre of a group of colonels of the staff to whom he was rapidly communicating their orders. Close beside him stood Lannes, his arm in a sling; a gunshot wound that defied the art of the surgeons still deprived him of his left hand. And there leaned Savary against the window, his dark eyes riveted on the corps of gendarmerie in the court beneath; full taller by a head than the largest about him, he seemed almost gigantic in the massive accoutrements of his service. The fierce Davoust; the gay and splendid Murat, with his waving plumes and jewelled dolman; Lefebvre, the very type of his class, moving with difficulty from a wound in his hip,—all were there: while passing rapidly from place to place, I remarked a young and handsome man, whose uniform of colonel bore the decoration of the Legion; he appeared to know and be known to all. This was Eugène Beauharnais, the stepson of the Emperor.
“Ah, Général d'Auvergne!” cried he, approaching with a smile, “his Majesty desires to see you after the levée. You leave to-night, I believe?”
“Yes, Colonel; all is in readiness,” said the general; while I thought a look of anxiety at the Emperor's summons seemed to agitate his features.
“One of your staff?” said Beauharnais, bowing, as he looked towards me.
“My aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Burke,” replied the general, presenting me.
“Ah! I remember,” said the colonel, as he drew himself proudly up, and seemed as though the recollection were anything but favorable to me.
But just then the wide folding-doors were thrown open, and a loud voice proclaimed, “Sa Majesté l'Empereur!”
In an instant every voice was hushed, the groups broke up, and fell back into two long lines, between which lay a passage; along this the officers of the Palace retired slowly, facing the Emperor, who came step by step after them. I could but see the pale face, massive and regular, like the head of an antique cameo; the hair combed straight upon his fine forehead; and his large, full eyes, as they turned hither and thither among that crowd, once his equals, now how immeasurably his inferiors! He stopped every now and then to say a word or two to some one as he passed, but in so low a tone, that even in the dead silence around nothing was audible save a murmur. It was a relief to my own excited feelings, as, with high, beating heart, I gazed on the greatest monarch of the world, that I beheld the others around, the oldest generals, the time-worn companions of his battles, not less moved than myself.
While the Emperor passed slowly along, I could mark that Eugène Beauharnais moved rapidly through the gallery, whispering now to this one, now to that, among the officers of superior grade, who immediately after left the salon by a door at the end. At length he approached General d'Auvergne, saying,—