her in an adjoining room.
The door of Raguideau's cabinet did not shut close, and Bonaparte plainly
heard him dissuading Madame de Beauharnais from her projected marriage.
"You are going to take a very wrong step," said he, "and you will be
sorry for it, Can you be so mad as to marry a young man who has nothing
but his cloak and his sword?" Bonaparte, Josephine told me, had never
mentioned this to her, and she never supposed that he had heard what fell
from Raguideau. "Only think, Bourrienne," continued she, "what was my
astonishment when, dressed in the Imperial robes on the Coronation day,
he desired that Raguideau might be sent for, saying that he wished to see
him immediately; and when Raguidesu appeared; he said to him, 'Well, sir!
have I nothing but my cloak and my sword now?'"

Though Bonaparte had related to me almost all the circumstances of his
life, as they occurred to his memory, he never once mentioned this affair
of Raguideau, which he only seemed to have suddenly recollected on his
Coronation day.

The day after the Coronation all the troops in Paris were assembled in
the Champ de Mars the Imperial eagles might be distributed to each
regiment, in lieu of the national flags. I has stayed away from the
Coronation in the church of Notre Dame, but I wished to see the military
fete in the Champ de Mars because I took real pleasure in seeing
Bonaparte amongst his soldiers. A throne was erected in front of the
Military School, which, though now transformed into a barrack, must have
recalled, to Bonaparte's mind some singular recollections of his boyhood.
At a given signal all the columns closed and approached the throne. Then
Bonaparte, rising, gave orders for the distribution of the eagles, and
delivered the following address to the deputations of the different corps
of the army:

"Soldiers, Soldiers! behold your colours. These eagles will always
be your rallying-point! They will always be where your Emperor may
thank them necessary for the defence of his throne and of his
people. Swear to sacrifice your lives to defend them, and by your
courage to keep them constantly in the path of victory.--Swear!"

It would be impossible to describe the acclamations which followed this
address; there is something so seductive in popular enthusiasm that even
indifferent persons cannot help yielding to its influence. And yet the
least reflection would have shown how shamefully Napoleon forswore the
declarat