I should have experienced, I confess, great joy in talking with them of my present situation and my hopes; and I felt the need of freely expressing myself, and enjoying the confidences of domestic privacy, in compensation for the repression and constraint which my position imposed on me. Therefore I requested permission to pass eight days at Perueltz. It was readily granted, and I lost no time in setting out; but my astonishment may be imagined when, the very day after my arrival, a courier brought me a letter from the Count de Remusat, ordering me to rejoin the Emperor immediately, adding that his Majesty needed me, and I should have no other thought than that of returning without delay. In spite of the disappointment induced by such orders, I felt flattered nevertheless at having become so necessary to the great man who had deigned to admit me into his service, and at once bade adieu to my family. His Majesty had hardly reached Boulogne, when he set out again immediately on a tour of several days in the departments of the north. I was at Boulogne before his return, and had organized his Majesty's service so that he found everything ready on his arrival; but this did not prevent his saying to me that I had been absent a long time.
While I am on this subject, I will narrate here, although some years in advance, one or two circumstances which will give the reader a better idea of the rigorous confinement to which I was subjected. I had contracted, in consequence of the fatigues of my continual journeyings in the suite of the Emperor, a disease of the bladder, from which I suffered horribly. For a long time I combated the disease with patience and dieting; but at last, the pain having become entirely unbearable, in 1808 I requested of his Majesty a month's leave of absence in order to be cured, Dr. Boyer having told me that a month was the shortest time absolutely necessary for my restoration, and that without it my disease would become incurable. I went to Saint-Cloud to visit my wife's family, where Yvan, surgeon of the Emperor, came to see me every day. Hardly a week had passed, when he told me that his Majesty thought I ought to be entirely well, and wished me to resume my duties. This wish was equivalent to an order; it was thus I understood it, and returned to the Emperor, who seeing me pale, and suffering excruciatingly, deigned to say to me many kind things, without, however, mentioning a new leave of absence. These two were my only absences for sixteen years; therefore, on my return from Moscow, and during the campaign of France, my disease having reached its height, I quitted the Emperor at Fontainebleau, because it was impossible for me, in spite of all my attachment to so kind a master, and all the gratitude which I felt towards him, to perform my duties longer. Even after this separation, which was exceedingly painful to me, a year hardly sufficed to cure me, and then not entirely. But I shall take occasion farther on to speak of this melancholy event. I now return to the recital of facts, which prove that I could, with more reason than many others, believe myself a person of great importance, since my humble services seemed to be indispensable to the master of Europe, and many frequenters of the Tuileries would have had more difficulty than I in proving their usefulness. Is there too much vanity in what I have just said? and would not the chamberlains have a right to be vexed by it? I am not concerned with that, so I continue my narrative. The Emperor was tenacious of old habits; he preferred, as we have already seen, being served by me in preference to all others; nevertheless, it is my duty to state that his servants were all full of zeal and devotion, though I had been with him longest, and had never left him. One day the Emperor asked for tea in the middle of the day. M. Seneschal was on duty, consequently made the tea, and presented it to his Majesty, who declared it to be detestable, and had me summoned. The Emperor complained to me that they were trying to poison him (this was his expression when he found a bad taste in anything); so going into the kitchen, I poured out of the same teapot, a cup, which I prepared and carried to his Majesty, with two silver-gilt spoons as usual, one to taste the tea in the presence of the Emperor, and the other for him. This time he said the tea was excellent, and complimented me on it with a kind familiarity which he deigned at times to use towards his servants. On returning the cup to me, he pulled my ears, and said, "You must teach them how to make tea; they know nothing about it." De Bourrienne, whose excellent Memoirs I have read with the greatest pleasure, says somewhere, that the Emperor in his moments of good humor pinched the tip of the ears of his familiars. I myself think that he pinched the whole ear, often, indeed, both ears at once, and with the hand of a master. He also says in these same Memoirs, that the Emperor gave little friendly slaps with two fingers, in which De Bourrienne is very moderate, for I can bear witness in regard to this matter, that his Majesty, although his hand was not large, bestowed his favors much more broadly; but this kind of caress, as well as the former, was given and received as a mark of particular favor, and the recipients were far from complaining then. I have heard more than one dignitary say with pride, like the sergeant in the comedy,—
"Sir, feel there, the blow upon my cheek is still warm."
In his private apartments the Emperor was almost always cheerful and approachable, conversing freely with the persons in his service, questioning them about their families, their affairs, and even as to their pleasures. His toilet finished, his appearance suddenly changed; he became grave and thoughtful, and assumed again the bearing of an emperor. It has been said, that he often beat the people of his household, which statement is untrue. I saw him once only give himself up to a transport of this kind; and certainly the circumstances which caused it, and the reparation which followed, ought to render it, if not excusable, at least easily understood: This is the incident, of which I was a witness, and which took place in the suburbs of Vienna, the day after the death of Marshal Lannes. The Emperor was profoundly affected, and had not spoken a word during his toilet. As soon as he was dressed he asked for his horse; and as an unlucky chance would have it, Jardin, superintendent of the stables, could not be found when the horse was saddled, and the groom did not put on him his regular bridle, in consequence of which his Majesty had no sooner mounted, than the animal plunged, reared, and the rider fell heavily to the ground. Jardin arrived just as the Emperor was rising from the ground, beside himself with anger; and in his first transport of rage, he gave Jardin a blow with his riding-whip directly across his face. Jardin withdrew, overwhelmed by such cruel treatment, so unusual in his Majesty; and: few hours after, Caulaincourt, grand equerry, finding himself alone with his Majesty, described to him Jardin's grief and mortification. The Emperor expressed deep regret for his anger, sent for Jardin, and spoke to him with a kindness which effaced the remembrance of his ill treatment, and sent him a few days afterward three thousand francs. I have been told that a similar incident happened to Vigogne, senior, in Egypt. But although this may be true, two such instances alone in the entire life of the Emperor, which was passed amid surroundings so well calculated to make a man, even though naturally most amiable, depart from his usual character, should not be sufficient to draw down upon Napoleon the odious reproach of beating cruelly those in his service.
CHAPTER XVI.
In his headquarters at the Pont des Briques the Emperor worked as regularly as in his cabinet at the Tuileries. After his rides on horseback, his inspections, his visits, his reviews, he took his meals in haste, and retired into his cabinet, where he often worked most of the night, thus leading the same life as at Paris. In his horseback rides Roustan followed him everywhere, always taking with him a little silver flask of brandy for the use of his Majesty, who rarely asked for it.
The army of Boulogne was composed of about one hundred and fifty thousand infantry and ninety thousand cavalry, divided into four principal camps, the camp of the right wing, the camp of the left wing, the camp of Wimereux, and the camp of Ambleteuse.
His Majesty the Emperor had his headquarters at Pont de Briques; thus named, I was told, because the brick foundations of an old camp of Caesar's had been discovered there. The Pont de Briques, as I have said above, is about half a league from Boulogne; and the headquarters of his Majesty were established in the only house of the place which was then habitable, and guarded by a detachment of the cavalry of the Imperial Guard.
The four camps were on a very high cliff overlooking the sea, so situated that in fine weather the coast of England could be seen.
In the camp on the right they had established barracks for the Emperor, Admiral Bruix, Marshal Soult, and Decres, who was then minister of the navy.