many times, almost suffocating him.
The promenader disengaged himself with great difficulty from his warm
embraces, regarded General Junot with an amazed air, and remarked that he
was ignorant to what he could attribute such excessive tenderness from a
soldier wearing the uniform of a superior officer, and all the
indications of high rank. "What," cried he, "do you not recognize
me?"--"Citizen General, I pray you to excuse me, but I have no
idea"--"Ah, morbleu, my dear master, have you forgotten the most idle,
the most lawless, the most incorrigible of your scholars?"--"A thousand
pardons, you are Monsieur Junot."--"Himself!" replied Junot, renewing
his embraes, and laughing with his friends at the singular
characteristics by which he had caused himself to be recognized. As for
his Majesty the Emperor, if any of his old masters had failed to
recognize him, it could not be by reminiscences of this kind that he
could have recalled himself to them; for every one knows that he was
distinguished at the military school for his application to work, and
the regularity and sobriety of his life.

A meeting of the same nature, saving the difference in recollections,
awaited the Emperor at Brienne. While he was visiting the old military
school, now falling to ruin, and pointing out to the persons who
surrounded him the situation of the study halls, dormitories,
refectories, etc., an ecclesiastic who had been tutor of one of the
classes in the school was presented to him. The Emperor recognized him
immediately; and, uttering an exclamation of surprise, his Majesty
conversed more than twenty minutes with this gentleman, leaving him full
of gratitude.

The Emperor, before leaving Brienne to return to Fontainebleau, required
the mayor to give him a written account of the most pressing needs of the
commune, and left on his departure a considerable sum for the poor and
the hospitals.

Passing through Troyes, the Emperor left there, as everywhere else,
souvenirs of his generosity. The widow of a general officer, living in
retirement at Joinville (I regret that I have forgotten the name of this
venerable lady, who was more than an octogenarian), came to Troyes,
notwithstanding her great age, to ask aid from his Majesty. Her husband
having served only before the Revolution, the pension which she had
enjoyed had been taken from her under the Republic, and she was in the
greatest destitution. The brother of General Vouittemont, mayor of a