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The king took the watches of his officers, and distributed them among these barbarous warriors. One of them called him his hettman. Murat was for a moment tempted to believe that in these officers he should find a new Mazeppa, or that he himself should become one: he imagined that he had gained them over.
While the Emperor was giving crowns to his brothers and sisters, to Prince Louis, the throne of Holland; Naples to Prince Joseph; the Duchy of Berg to Prince Murat; to the Princess Eliza, Lucca and Massa-Carrara; and Guastalla to the Princess Pauline Borghese; and while, by means of treaties and family alliances, he was assuring still more the co-operation of the different states which had entered into the Confederation of the Rhine, war was renewed between France and Prussia.
MY LORD: Upwards of two months after my visit to General Murat, I was surprised at the appearance of M. Darjuson, the chamberlain of Princesse Louis Bonaparte. He told me that he came on the part of Prince Louis, who honoured me with an invitation to dine with him the day after.
Wilson, with the intelligent face of her secretary, Miss Benham, in the background, and between myself and Princesse Murat, the easy, attractive presence of the man whom this old Europe, with one accord, is now discussing, criticising, blaming or applauding. The President talked with perfect simplicity and great apparent frankness.
"If they hesitate," said Murat, who commanded the expedition in the wood of Vincennes, "my pistols are loaded, and I will blow out his brains." His wife is the greatest coquette of the Bonaparte family.
This is what the widow of General Durand says on the subject, in her interesting Memoirs: "Princess Caroline, Madame Murat, then Queen of Naples, had gone to Braunau to meet her sister-in-law.
He, indeed, reckoned him so redoubtable that he wrote to Murat, saying he wished fortune might reserve for him the honour of putting the seal on the conquest of Egypt by the destruction of this opponent. On the 14th of July Bonaparte left Cairo for the Pyramids.
Davoust's corps was to his right, Poniatowski's division came next, while Murat with his cavalry division completed the semicircle. "The Russians must be mad," was the comment of the veterans of Julian's regiment. "The place is of no strength; the artillery will breach the walls in no time.
Once aroused, the French spirit brooked no further delay, and it was determined to seek the "good battle" before Smolensk, which, lying on the right, or north, bank of the Dnieper, could be reached only by crossing the stream. This manoeuver was brilliantly executed. Barclay was a day's march distant on the south bank when Ney and Murat deployed on the other side for action on August sixteenth.
But Lamarque, on communicating Colonel Lowe’s request to King Murat, received peremptory orders to demand an unconditional surrender, whereupon an aide-de-camp of the King’s, a certain Colonel Manches, was sent to interview Lowe with the royal letter in his pocket.
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