When Bonaparte was paying his addresses to Madame de beauharnais, neither the one nor the other kept a carriage; and therefore Bonaparte frequently accompanied her when she walked out.  One day they went together to the notary Raguideau, one of the shortest men I think I ever saw in my life, Madame de Beauharnais placed great confidence, in him, and went there on purpose to acquaint him of her intention to marry the young general of artillery,—­the protege of Barras.  Josephine went alone into, the notary’s cabinet, while Bonaparte waited for her in an adjoining room.  The door of Raguideau’s cabinet did not shut close, and Bonaparte plainly heard him dissuading Madame de Beauharnais from her projected marriage.  “You are going to take a very wrong step,” said he, “and you will be sorry for it, Can you be so mad as to marry a young man who has nothing but his cloak and his sword?” Bonaparte, Josephine told me, had never mentioned this to her, and she never supposed that he had heard what fell from Raguideau.  “Only think, Bourrienne,” continued she, “what was my astonishment when, dressed in the Imperial robes on the Coronation day, he desired that Raguideau might be sent for, saying that he wished to see him immediately; and when Raguidesu appeared; he said to him, ’Well, sir! have I nothing but my cloak and my sword now?’”

Though Bonaparte had related to me almost all the circumstances of his life, as they occurred to his memory, he never once mentioned this affair of Raguideau, which he only seemed to have suddenly recollected on his Coronation day.

The day after the Coronation all the troops in Paris were assembled in the Champ de Mars the Imperial eagles might be distributed to each regiment, in lieu of the national flags.  I has stayed away from the Coronation in the church of Notre Dame, but I wished to see the military fete in the Champ de Mars because I took real pleasure in seeing Bonaparte amongst his soldiers.  A throne was erected in front of the Military School, which, though now transformed into a barrack, must have recalled, to Bonaparte’s mind some singular recollections of his boyhood.  At a given signal all the columns closed and approached the throne.  Then Bonaparte, rising, gave orders for the distribution of the eagles, and delivered the following address to the deputations of the different corps of the army: 

“Soldiers, Soldiers! behold your colours.  These eagles will always be your rallying-point!  They will always be where your Emperor may thank them necessary for the defence of his throne and of his people.  Swear to sacrifice your lives to defend them, and by your courage to keep them constantly in the path of victory.—­Swear!”

It would be impossible to describe the acclamations which followed this address; there is something so seductive in popular enthusiasm that even indifferent persons cannot help yielding to its influence.  And yet the least reflection would have shown how shamefully Napoleon forswore the declaration he made to the Senate, when the organic ‘Senatus-consulte’ for the foundation of the Empire was presented to him at St:  Cloud:  On that occasion he said; “The French people shall never be my people!” And yet the day after his Coronation his eagles were to be carried wherever they might be necessary for the defence of his people.