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He had ordered his tent to be pitched as a volunteer in the street of the camp assigned to the young noblemen who were to be presented to the King and were to serve as aides-de-camp to the Generals; he soon repaired thither, and was quickly armed, horsed, and cuirassed, according to the custom of the time, and set out alone for the Spanish bastion, the place of rendezvous.
Let us inquire into the usual division of the First Consul's time. He rose at seven or eight in the morning, and immediately called one of his secretaries, preferably Bourrienne, and worked with him until ten. At ten, breakfast was announced; Josephine, Hortense and Eugene either waited or sat down to table with the family, that is with the aides-de-camp on duty and Bourrienne.
"The marshal makes the changes simply for the sake of doing something partly, perhaps, to take the king's attention off this confounded delay; partly to interest the troops, who must be just as restless and impatient as we are." The messages were taken, alternately, by the king's aides-de-camp and the marshal's. At length, as the fog began to lift, the interest in the scene heightened.
On leaving Castelnaudary, my father ordered the coach to stop at a famous tree under which the Constable Montmorency had been taken prisoner by the troops of Louis XIII, following the defeat of the supporters of Gaston d'Orléans, who had rebelled against his brother. He chatted about this event with his aides-de-camp, and my brother who was already well informed took part in the conversation.
Bixio himself led his men, and with his aides-de-camp, Cavaliere Filippo Fermi, Count Martini, and Colonel Malenchini, all Tuscans, actually charged the enemy.
"Well, if you are not mistaken about your step, I congratulate you most heartily. It is seldom, indeed, that anyone gains one in six weeks after his first appointment. I thought myself lucky, indeed, in getting it after serving only two years and a half; but I got it simply on nomination as one of the marshal's aides-de-camp.
At the halting-places the senior officers of the staff kept together, while the aides-de-camp made up a mess of their own, always choosing a place as far away as possible from that of the chief, so that they could laugh, joke, and even sing, without fear of disturbing his lordship.
Hardy, one of his Excellency's aides-de-camp, to sing "God save the King," to which the people in the street outside listened, thinking that it might be a part of some religious service which Madam was celebrating; but then she called for "Britons, strike home!" which the simple young gentleman just from Europe began to perform, when a great yell arose in the street, and a large stone, flung from some rebellious hand, plumped into the punch-bowl before me, and scattered it and its contents about our dining-room.
Occasionally, it is true, a more vigorous flare than usual from their faggots sent darting lights like aides-de-camp down the inclines to some distant bush, pool, or patch of white sand, kindling these to replies of the same colour, till all was lost in darkness again.
The very day that Napoleon issued the order to cross the Niemen, and his vanguard, driving off the Cossacks, crossed the Russian frontier, Alexander spent the evening at the entertainment given by his aides-de-camp at Bennigsen's country house. It was a gay and brilliant fete. Connoisseurs of such matters declared that rarely had so many beautiful women been assembled in one place.
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