beat the alarm march, and to-day you shall be nominated a general.”  Liebeau obeyed, Robespierre became victorious and kept his promise, and thus my present associate gained his rank.  He has since been employed under Jourdan in Germany, and under Le Courbe in Switzerland.  When, under the former, he was ordered to retreat towards the Rhine, he pointed out the march route to his division according to his geographical knowledge, but mistook upon the map the River Main for a turnpike road, and commanded the retreat accordingly.  Ever since, our troops have called that river ’La chausee de Liebeau’.  He was not more fortunate in Helvetia.  Being ordered to cross one of the mountains, he marched his men into a glacier, where twelve perished before he was aware of his mistake.

Being afterwards appointed a governor of Blois, he there became a petty, insupportable tyrant, and laid all the inhabitants indiscriminately under arbitrary contribution.  Those who refused to pay were imprisoned as aristocrats, and their property confiscated in the name and on the part of the nation; that is to say, he appropriated to himself in the name of the nation everything that struck his fancy; and if any complaints were made, the owners were seized and sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal at Paris to be condemned as the correspondents or adherents of the royalists of La Vendee.  After the death of Robespierre he was deprived of this profitable place, in which, during the short space of eleven months, he amassed five millions of livres.  The Directory, then gave him a division, first under Jourdan, and afterwards under Le Courbe.

Bonaparte, after witnessing his incapacity in Italy, in 1800, put him on the full half-pay, and has lately made him a commander of the Legion of Honour.

His dear spouse, Madame Liebeau, is his counterpart.  When he married her, she was crying mackerel and herrings in our streets; but she told me in confidence, during the dinner, being seated by my side, that her father was an officer of fortune, and a Chevalier of the Order of St. Louis.  She assured me that her husband had done greater services to his country than Bonaparte; and that, had it not been for his patriotism in 1793, the Austrians would have taken Paris.  She was very angry with Madame Napoleon, to whom she had been presented, but who had not shown her so much attention and civility, as was due to her husband’s rank, having never invited her to more than one supper and two tea-parties; and when invited by her, had sent Duroc with an apology that she was unable to come, though the same evening she went to the opera.

Another guest, in the regimentals of a colonel, seemed rather bashful when I spoke to him.  I could not comprehend the reason, and therefore inquired of our host who he was. (You know that with us it is not the custom to introduce persons by name, etc., as in your country, when meeting in mixed companies.) He answered: