t us. Already there were Jourdan, Marmont, Murat, Bernadotte, and
Jomini--though nobody minded much about Jomini, for his pen was always
sharper than his sword. We had been ready to fight Europe, but it looked
now as though we were to fight Europe and half of France as well.

We had come to Fontainebleau by a long, forced march, and there we were
assembled, the poor remnants of us, the corps of Ney, the corps of my
cousin Gerard, and the corps of Macdonald: twenty-five thousand in all,
with seven thousand of the guard. But we had our prestige, which was
worth fifty thousand, and our Emperor, who was worth fifty thousand
more. He was always among us, serene, smiling, confident, taking his
snuff and playing with his little riding-whip. Never in the days of his
greatest victories have I admired him as much as I did during the
Campaign of France.

One evening I was with a few of my officers, drinking a glass of wine of
Suresnes. I mention that it was wine of Suresnes just to show you that
times were not very good with us. Suddenly I was disturbed by a message
from Berthier that he wished to see me. When I speak of my old
comrades-in-arms, I will, with your permission, leave out all the fine
foreign titles which they had picked up during the wars. They are
excellent for a Court, but you never heard them in the camp, for we
could not afford to do away with our Ney, our Rapp, or our Soult--names
which were as stirring to our ears as the blare of our trumpets blowing
the reveille. It was Berthier, then, who sent to say that he wished to
see me.

He had a suite of rooms at the end of the gallery of Francis the First,
not very far from those of the Emperor. In the ante-chamber were waiting
two men whom I knew well: Colonel Despienne, of the 57th of the line,
and Captain Tremeau, of the Voltigeurs. They were both old
soldiers--Tremeau had carried a musket in Egypt--and they were also both
famous in the army for their courage and their skill with weapons.
Tremeau had become a little stiff in the wrist, but Despienne was
capable at his best of making me exert myself. He was a tiny fellow,
about three inches short of the proper height for a man--he was exactly
three inches shorter than myself--but both with the sabre and with the
small-sword he had several times almost held his own against me when we
used to exhibit at Verron's Hall of Arms in the Palais Royal. You may
think that it made us sniff something in the wind when we found