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During June and the first days of July, he moved by Abrantes and the Tagus valley as far as Plasencia, little knowing that Soult was about to sweep round his rear, with 50,000 men, and intercept his communications with Lisbon. On July 10 he held a conference with the Spanish general Cuesta, who insisted on making an aggressive movement with his own troops only, and met with a repulse.
He called Rapp, and told him to take the command from the Duke of Abrantes: he would dismiss him from the army! he had lost his marshal's staff without retrieve! this blunder would probably block the road to Moscow against them; that to him, Rapp, he should intrust the Westphalians; that he would speak to them in their own language, and he would know how to make them fight.
Judging by the words of Cardinal Maury, who had been so famous in the Constituent Assembly, and had been made Archbishop of Paris by the Emperor, Napoleon was very much in love with his young wife. "It would be impossible," he wrote to the Duchesa of Abrantes, "to make you understand how much the Emperor loves our charming Empress. It is love, but a good love this time.
Garrisons had to be placed at several points, and 8000 Portuguese were posted at Thomar, a day's march from Abrantes, as a reserve for Hill. It was not only the 50,000 infantry and 8000 cavalry of Massena, who now commanded in front of Ciudad Rodrigo, that he had to reckon with.
We made a delightful journey from Thomar to Lisbon, by Abrantes, at which place I saw an old gentleman in an antediluvian uniform, wearing his sword transversely like a powdered marquis in a play, advance towards me, and throw himself on his knees, embracing mine, and exclaiming, "Let me embrace the man who brought back Napoleon!" Helena expedition, which somewhat amazed me.
He then spent half an hour in O'Grady's tent, and sampled the whisky, which he pronounced excellent, and of which his entertainer insisted upon his taking a bottle away with him. Three days later it was known in camp that two French divisions had been set in motion against them, the one from Abrantes to the east under Loison, the other from the south under Laborde.
His first object, he had been already told, should be to capture the fleet lying in the Tagus and to take the regent prisoner. The clever and ambitious general marched swiftly, and on November twenty-seventh reached, with his exhausted troops, Abrantes, a town about eighty miles from Lisbon.
"I was going to send Junot before a council of war," said he; "but, happily, the English have been before me in sending their generals, and have thus spared me the mortification of punishing an old friend." The confidence of Napoleon remained, however, shaken with respect to his officer. "Everything which was not a triumph he looked upon as a defeat," said the Duchess of Abrantes in her memoirs.
The Emperor restored them to the worship of the faithful. The preparations were completed, and the ceremony promised to be magnificent. Madame Junot, afterwards the Duchess of Abrantes, breakfasted with the Empress at the Tuileries, December 1, 1804, the day before the coronation. Josephine was much excited and radiantly happy.
'Had they been dragoons, said the Bart, laughing, 'he would have had Berlin. But you are senior officer; give us a lead, and we'll see who will be the first to flinch. 'Well, said I, 'whatever we do must be done at once, for my orders are to be on my way to Abrantes by tomorrow night. But we must have some information first, and here is someone who should be able to give it to us.
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