(and it struck me as being very extraordinary) was
silent, and coldly insensible to the humour which was so irresistibly
diverting to everyone else. I remarked at this period that his character
was reserved, and frequently gloomy. His smile was hypocritical, and
often misplaced; and I recollect that a few days after our return he gave
us one of these specimens of savage hilarity which I greatly disliked,
and which prepossessed me against him. He was telling us that, being
before Toulon, where he commanded the artillery, one of his officers was
visited by his wife, to wham he had been but a short time married, and
whom he tenderly loved. A few days after, orders were given for another
attack upon the town, in which this officer was to be engaged. His wife
came to General Bonaparte, and with tears entreated him to dispense with
her husband's services that day. The General was inexorable, as he
himself told us, with a sort of savage exaltation. The moment for the
attack arrived, and the officer, though a very brave man, as Bonaparte
him self-assured us, felt a presentiment of his approaching death. He
turned pale and trembled. Ha was stationed beside the General, and
during an interval when the firing from the town was very heavy,
Bonaparte called out to him, "Take care, there is a shell coming!" The
officer, instead of moving to one side, stooped down, and was literally
severed in two. Bonaparte laughed loudly while he described the event
with horrible minuteness. At this time we saw him almost every day. He
frequently came to dine with us. As there was a scarcity of bread, and
sometimes only two ounces per head daily were distributed in the section,
it was customary to request one's guests to bring their own bread, as it
could not be procured for money. Bonaparte and his brother Louis (a
mild, agreeable young man, who was the General's aide de army) used to
bring with them their ration bread, which was black, and mixed with bran.
I was sorry to observe that all this bad bread fell to the share of the
poor aide de camp, for we provided the General with a finer kind, which
was made clandestinely by a pastrycook, from flour which we contrived to
smuggle from Sens, where my husband had some farms. Had we been
denounced, the affair might have cost us our heads.

We spent six weeks in Paris, and we went frequently with Bonaparte to the
theatres, and to the fine concerts given by Garat in the Rue St. Marc.
These were the first