It was somewhere about this time that a French army entered Belgium, and besieged and took the citadel of Antwerp, and during this campaign my elder brothers first had the honour of leading our soldiers under fire.  Antwerp once taken, the French Government, content with having given a proof of activity to Europe, and shown everybody what our legions could do, at once recalled the army, and my father went to review it in the cantonments on the frontier where it lay.  I made this journey with him.  The troops were splendid, full of zeal and confidence.  I was shown one infantry brigade, which at the time of mobilization had done marches of sixty to seventy kilometres, so as to reach the given point at the hour fixed upon.  It was an interesting journey, though a very trying one.  Every day there was an entry into some town, and a partial review, in Siberian cold.  And every evening there was a banquet, and every night a ball.  The chief review was held at Valenciennes.  The troops looked magnificent, drawn up on the snow, and, though it was so terribly cold, a brilliant sun lighted up the splendid military scene.  It was enlivened by a little incident.  The commandant of the fortress of Valenciennes was an old colonel, who had re-engaged in 1830, after having dabbled somewhat in conspiracy, under the Restoration.  His name was M. de la Huberdiere, and he had had himself a hat made exactly like Napoleon’s, and wore it just after the same fashion.

During the march past, either from sheer keenness or because he wanted to attract attention to himself, he edged himself gradually in front of the staff, on the side where the troops advanced, till at last he was abreast of the King, so that the troops appeared to be marching past him.  This provoked one of my father’s aides-de-camp, Heymes, who went up to him, and said, saluting, “It seems to me, Colonel, you would be better placed still if you were on the King’s horse!” The shriek of laughter which greeted this remark may be imagined.

This same Heymes, one of the few survivors of General Leclerc’s expedition to St. Domingo, had, on leaving that charnel-house, become aide-de-camp to Marshal Ney.  He it was who, during the famous retreat from Russia, was sent to ask the general who was blowing up the Beresina bridges to suspend the work of destruction, so as to allow of the passage of the column with the wounded, who must otherwise be doomed to death.  It was worth seeing the expression of his face, severe enough already, when he repeated the answer the general in question gave him, with the most southern of accents, “What, my dear fellow!  The wounded!  The Emperor has decided to sacrifice them!”