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"See how you are," said the First Consul, "always sick and complaining; and if you stay here, who then will shave me?" "General," replied Hambard, "Constant knows how to shave as well as I." I was present, and occupied at that very moment in dressing the First Consul. He looked at me and said, "Well, you queer fellow, since you are so skilled, you shall make proof of it at once.
Madame Bonaparte rode in the carriage with her husband; General Moncey, Inspector-general of the Constabulary, on horseback on the right; in the second carriage was General Soult and his aides-de-camp; in the third carriage, General Bessieres and M. de Lugay; in the fourth, General Lauriston; then came the carriages of the personal attendants, Hambard, Hebert, and I being in the first.
I was one day in his sleeping-room, at the usual hour for his toilet, and was performing that day the duties of chief valet, Hambard being temporarily absent or indisposed, there being in the room, besides the body servants, only the brave and modest Colonel Gerard Lacuee, one of the aides-de-camp of the First Consul. Jerome Bonaparte, then hardly seventeen years of age, was introduced.
"Ah, well, what were you doing there in your room all by yourself? Doubtless you were reading some poor romances, or some old books about princesses carried off and kept under guard by a barbarous giant." To which Hambard would sullenly reply, "General, you no doubt know better than I what I was doing," referring in this way to the spies by which he believed himself to be always surrounded.
"See how you are," said the First Consul, "always sick and complaining; and if you stay here, who then will shave me?" "General," replied Hambard, "Constant knows how to shave as well as I." I was present, and occupied at that very moment in dressing the First Consul. He looked at me and said, "Well, you queer fellow, since you are so skilled, you shall make proof of it at once.
This constant traveling was too much for Hambard, who for a long time had been in feeble health; and when the First Consul was on the point of setting out for his first tour in the North, Hambard had asked to be excused, alleging, which was only too true, the bad state of his health.
In a kind of mania he imagined himself to be the object of a special espionage; and when his hours of service were over, he would shut himself up in his room, and pass in mournful solitude the whole time he was not on duty. The First Consul, when in good humor, would joke with him upon this savage disposition, calling him Mademoiselle Hambard.
Notwithstanding this unfortunate disposition, the First Consul felt very kindly to him. When the Emperor went to camp at Boulogne, Hambard refused to accompany him; and the Emperor gave him, as a place of retreat, the charge of the palace of Meudon. There he showed unmistakable symptoms of insanity, and his end was lamentable.
Notwithstanding this unfortunate disposition, the First Consul felt very kindly to him. When the Emperor went to camp at Boulogne, Hambard refused to accompany him; and the Emperor gave him, as a place of retreat, the charge of the palace of Meudon. There he showed unmistakable symptoms of insanity, and his end was lamentable.
The First Consul slept upon the field of battle, and notwithstanding the decisive victory that he had gained, was very sad, and said that evening, in the presence of Hambard and myself, many things which showed the profound grief he experienced in the death of General Desaix.
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