Eloquence so martial and patriotic stirred all hearts. Fougas was applauded, fêted, embraced, and almost carried in triumph into the banquet hall.
Seated at table opposite M. Rollon, as if he were a second master of the house, he breakfasted heartily, talked a great deal, and drank more yet. You may occasionally meet, in the world, people who get drunk without drinking. Fougas was far from being one of them. He never felt his equanimity seriously disturbed short of three bottles. Often, in fact, he went much further without yielding.
The toasts presented at dessert were distinguished for pith and cordiality. I would like to recount them in order, but am forced to admit that they would take up too much room, and that the last, which were the most touching, were not of a lucidity absolutely Voltairian.
They arose from the table at two o'clock, and betook themselves in a body to the Café Militaire, where the officers of the 23d placed a punch before the two colonels. They had invited, with a feeling of eminent propriety, the superior officers of the regiment of cuirassiers.
Fougas, who was drunker, in his own proper person, than a whole battalion of Suisses, distributed a great many hand-shakings. But across the storm which disturbed his spirit, he recognized the person and name of M. du Marnet, and made a grimace. Between officers, and, above all, between officers of different arms of the service, politeness is a little excessive, etiquette rather severe, amour-propre somewhat susceptible. M. du Marnet, who was preëminently a man of the world, understood at once, from the attitude of M. Fougas, that he was not in the presence of a friend.
The punch appeared, blazing, went out with its strength unimpaired, and was dispensed, with a big ladle, into threescore glasses. Fougas drank with everybody, except M. du Marnet. The conversation, which was erratic and noisy, imprudently raised a question of comparative merits. An officer of cuirassiers asked Fougas if he had seen Bordesoulle's splendid charge, which flung the Austrians into the valley of Plauen. Fougas had known General Bordesoulle personally, and had seen with his own eyes the beautiful heavy cavalry manoeuvre which decided the victory of Dresden. But he chose to be disagreeable to M. du Marnet, by affecting an air of ignorance or indifference.
"In our time," said he, "the cavalry was always brought into action after the battle; we employed it to bring in the enemy after we had routed them."
Here a great outcry arose, and the glorious name of Murat was thrown into the balance.
"Oh, doubtless—doubtless!" said he, shaking his head. "Murat was a good general in his limited sphere; he answered perfectly for all that was wanted of him. But if the cavalry had Murat, the infantry had Napoleon."
M. du Marnet observed, judiciously, that Napoleon, if he must be seized upon for the credit of any single arm of the service, would belong to the artillery.