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The Pont de Briques, as I have said above, is about half a league from Boulogne; and the headquarters of his Majesty were established in the only house of the place which was then habitable, and guarded by a detachment of the cavalry of the Imperial Guard. The four camps were on a very high cliff overlooking the sea, so situated that in fine weather the coast of England could be seen.
General Savary rode straight to Pont de Briques to report to the Emperor, while Gerard returned with me to my lodgings to share a bottle of wine. I had expected to find my Cousin Sibylle there, but to my surprise there was no sign of her, nor had she left any word to tell us whither she had gone.
The Emperor laughingly granted a tete-a-tete, the prince himself offering to send the message; and two days later, by his kind assistance, the lady arrived, and was installed in the upper town. The Emperor, who lodged at Pont des Briques, ordered me one evening to take a carriage, and find this protegee of Prince Murat.
'I hold my salon such a salon as Pont de Briques is capable of this evening, and the Emperor promised me that he would set his work aside for once, and favour us with his presence. I wish we could persuade him to work less, Monsieur de Talleyrand. He has a frame of iron, but he cannot continue in this way. These nervous attacks come more frequently upon him.
The Emperor laughingly granted a tete-a-tete, the prince himself offering to send the message; and two days later, by his kind assistance, the lady arrived, and was installed in the upper town. The Emperor, who lodged at Pont des Briques, ordered me one evening to take a carriage, and find this protegee of Prince Murat.
His Majesty the Emperor had his headquarters at Pont de Briques; thus named, I was told, because the brick foundations of an old camp of Caesar's had been discovered there.
The Emperor at once left the plain at a gallop, followed by some of the marshals, and took his position on the shore until the crews of the gunboats were saved, and the Emperor then returned to the Pont des Briques. This immense army could not regain its quarters before eight o'clock in the evening. The next day the camp of the left wing gave a military fete, at which the Emperor was present.
In his headquarters at the Pont des Briques the Emperor worked as regularly as in his cabinet at the Tuileries. After his rides on horseback, his inspections, his visits, his reviews, he took his meals in haste, and retired into his cabinet, where he often worked most of the night, thus leading the same life as at Paris.
The British armies, disembarking at Rouen, tramp through that very square where their ancestors burned the Maid of Orleans. And at Pont des Briques, outside Boulogne, where Napoleon waited impatiently for weeks in the hope of being able to invade England, is now situated the greatest of the British base camps. General Jilinsky reminded me of a fighting-cock.
The following day it entrained at Pont de Briques Station, on the train which brought the transport and machine-gun sections from Havre. The complete battalion detrained at Cassel, and after marching all night arrived in billets at Hardifort at 5 a.m. on the 21st April.
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