Bonaparte, confirmed in his power by the victory of Marengo, remained some days longer at Milan to settle the affairs of Italy.  He directed one to furnish Madame Grassini with money to pay her expenses to Paris.  We departed amidst the acclamations of the inhabitants, and took the road to Turin.  The First Consul stopped at Turin for some hours, and inspected the citadel, which had bean surrendered to us in pursuance of the capitulation of Alessandria.  In passing over Mont Cenis we observed the carriage of Madame Kellerman, who was going to meet her husband.  Bonaparte on recognizing the lady stopped his carriage and congratulated her on the gallant conduct of her husband at the battle of Marengo.

On our arrival at Lyons we alighted at the Hotel des Celestins, and the loud acclamations of a numerous multitude assembled round the hotel obliged Bonaparte to show himself on the balcony.  Next day he proceeded to the Square of Bellecour, where, amidst the plaudits of the people, he laid the first stone of some new buildings destined to efface one of the disasters of the Revolution.

We left Lyons that evening and continued our journey by way of Dijon.  On our arrival in that town the joy of the inhabitants was very great.  I never saw a more graceful and captivating sight than that which was presented by a group of beautiful young females, crowned with flowers, who accompanied Bonaparte’s carriage, and which at that period, when the Revolution had renewed all the republican recollections of Greece and Rome, looked like the chorus of females dancing around the victor at the Olympic games.

But all our journey was not so agreeable.  Some accidents awaited us.  The First Consul’s carriage broke down between Villeneuve-le-Roi and Sens.  He sent a courier to inform my mother that he would stop at her house till his carriage was repaired.  He dined there, and we started again at seven in the evening.

But we had other disasters to encounter.  One of our off-wheels came off, and as we were driving at a very rapid pace the carriage was overturned on the bridge at a short distance from Montreau-Faut-Yonne.  The First Consul, who sat on my left, fell upon me, and sustained no injury.  My head was slightly hurt by striking against some things which were in the pocket of the carriage; but this accident was not worth stopping for, and we arrived at Paris on the same night, the 2d of July.  Duroc, who was the third in the carriage, was not hurt.

I have already mentioned that Bonaparte was rather talkative when travelling; and as we were passing through Burgundy, on our return to Paris from Marengo, he said exultingly, “Well, a few more events like this campaign, and I may go down to posterity.”—­“I think,” replied I, “that you have already done enough to secure great and lasting fame.”—­“Yes,” resumed he, “I have done enough, it is true.  In less than two years I have won Cairo, Paris, and Milan; but for all that, my dear fellow, were I to die to-morrow I should not at the end of ten centuries occupy half a page of general history!”