The Emperor inquired the cause of their quarrel, and learned that a woman who granted her favors to both was the real motive, each of them desiring to have no rival.

These two champions found by chance that they were known to one of the generals who accompanied his Majesty, and informed him that they were two brave soldiers of Marengo and Austerlitz, belonging to such and such regiments, whose names had already been put on the list for the Cross of Honor; whereupon the Emperor addressed them after this style:  “My children, woman is capricious, as fortune is also; and since you are soldiers of Marengo and Austerlitz, you need to give no new proofs of your courage.  Return to your corps, and be friends henceforth, like good knights.”  These two soldiers lost all desire to fight, and soon perceived that their august peacemaker had not forgotten them, as they promptly received the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

In the beginning of the campaign of Tilsit, the Emperor, being at Berlin, one day took a fancy to make an excursion on foot to the quarter where our soldiers in the public houses indulged in the pleasures of the dance.  He saw a quartermaster of the cavalry of his guard walking with a coarse, rotund German woman, and amused himself listening to the gallant remarks made by this quartermaster to his beautiful companion.  “Let us enjoy ourselves, my dear,” said he; “it is the ‘tondu’ who pays the musicians with the ‘kriches’ of your sovereign.  Let us take our own gait; long live joy! and forward”—­“Not so fast,” said the Emperor, approaching him.  “Certainly it must always be forward, but wait till I sound the charge.”  The quartermaster turned and recognized the Emperor, and, without being at all disconcerted, put his hand to his shako, and said, “That is useless trouble.  Your Majesty does not need to beat a drum to make us move.”  This repartee made the Emperor smile, and soon after gained epaulets for the sub-officer, who perhaps might have waited a long while except for this fancy of his Majesty.  But, at all events, if chance sometimes contributed thus to the giving of rewards, they were never given until after he had ascertained that those on whom he bestowed them were worthy.

At Eylau provisions failed; for a week, the bread supply being exhausted, the soldiers fed themselves as they could.  The evening before the first attack, the Emperor, who wished to examine everything himself, made a tour of the bivouacs, and reaching one where all the men were asleep, saw some potatoes cooking, took a fancy to eat them, and undertook to draw them out of the fire with the point of his sword.  Instantly a soldier awoke, and seeing some one usurping part of his supper, “I say, you are not very ceremonious, eating our potatoes!”—­“My comrade, I am so hungry that you must excuse me.”—­“Well, take one or two then, if that is the case; but get off.”  But as the Emperor made no haste in getting off, the soldier insisted more strongly, and