‘You are mistaken.’

’I thought that perhaps something which I had said might have amused monsieur.  I thought that possibly he meant that Gascons really were quarrelsome, instead of being, as I contend, the mildest race in France—­an opinion which I am always ready to uphold in any way which may be suggested.  But, as I say, Lannes is a very valiant man, though, occasionally, perhaps, a trifle hot-headed.  The next man is Auguereau.’

I looked with interest upon the hero of Castiglione, who had taken command upon the one occasion when Napoleon’s heart and spirit had failed him.  He was a man, I should judge, who would shine rather in war than in peace, for, with his long goat’s face and his brandy nose, he looked, in spite of his golden oak-leaves, just such a long-legged, vulgar, swaggering, foul-mouthed old soldier as every barrack-room can show.  He was an older man than the others, and his sudden promotion had come too late for him to change.  He was always the Corporal of the Prussian Guard under the hat of the French Marshal.

‘Yes, yes; he is a rough fellow,’ said Gerard, in answer to my remark.  ’He is one of those whom the Emperor had to warn that he wished them to be soldiers only with the army.  He and Rapp and Lefebvre, with their big boots and their clanking sabres, were too much for the Empress’s drawing-room at the Tuileries.  There is Vandamme also, the dark man with the heavy face.  Heaven help the English village that he finds his quarters in!  It was he who got into trouble because he broke the jaw of a Westphalian priest who could not find him a second bottle of Tokay.’

‘And that is Murat, I suppose?’

’Yes; that is Murat with the black whiskers and the red, thick lips, and the brown of Egypt upon his face.  He is the man for me!  My word, when you have seen him raving in front of a brigade of light cavalry, with his plumes tossing and his sabre flashing, you would not wish to see anything finer.  I have known a square of grenadiers break and scatter at the very sight of him.  In Egypt the Emperor kept away from him, for the Arabs would not look at the little General when this fine horseman and swordsman was before them.  In my opinion Lasalle is the better light cavalry officer, but there is no one whom the men will follow as they do Murat.’

‘And who is the stern-looking man, leaning on the Oriental sword?’

’Oh, that is Soult!  He is the most obstinate man in the world.  He argues with the Emperor.  The handsome man beside him is Junot, and Bernadotte is leaning against the tent-pole.’

I looked with interest at the extraordinary face of this adventurer, who, after starting with a musket and a knapsack in the ranks, was not contented with the baton of a marshal, but passed on afterwards to grasp the sceptre of a king.  And it might be said of him that, unlike his fellows, he gained his throne in spite of Napoleon rather than by his aid.  Any man who looked at his singular pronounced features, the swarthiness of which proclaimed his half Spanish origin, must have read in his flashing black eyes and in that huge aggressive nose that he was reserved for a strange destiny.  Of all the fierce and masterful men who surrounded the Emperor there was none with greater gifts, and none, also, whose ambitions he more distrusted, than those of Jules Bernadotte.