e no other thought than that of returning without delay. In
spite of the disappointment induced by such orders, I felt flattered
nevertheless at having become so necessary to the great man who had
deigned to admit me into his service, and at once bade adieu to my
family. His Majesty had hardly reached Boulogne, when he set out again
immediately on a tour of several days in the departments of the north.
I was at Boulogne before his return, and had organized his Majesty's
service so that he found everything ready on his arrival; but this did
not prevent his saying to me that I had been absent a long time.

While I am on this subject, I will narrate here, although some years in
advance, one or two circumstances which will give the reader a better
idea of the rigorous confinement to which I was subjected. I had
contracted, in consequence of the fatigues of my continual journeyings in
the suite of the Emperor, a disease of the bladder, from which I suffered
horribly. For a long time I combated the disease with patience and
dieting; but at last, the pain having become entirely unbearable, in 1808
I requested of his Majesty a month's leave of absence in order to be
cured, Dr. Boyer having told me that a month was the shortest time
absolutely necessary for my restoration, and that without it my disease
would become incurable. I went to Saint-Cloud to visit my wife's family,
where Yvan, surgeon of the Emperor, came to see me every day. Hardly a
week had passed, when he told me that his Majesty thought I ought to be
entirely well, and wished me to resume my duties. This wish was
equivalent to an order; it was thus I understood it, and returned to the
Emperor, who seeing me pale, and suffering excruciatingly, deigned to say
to me many kind things, without, however, mentioning a new leave of
absence. These two were my only absences for sixteen years; therefore,
on my return from Moscow, and during the campaign of France, my disease
having reached its height, I quitted the Emperor at Fontainebleau,
because it was impossible for me, in spite of all my attachment to so
kind a master, and all the gratitude which I felt towards him, to perform
my duties longer. Even after this separation, which was exceedingly
painful to me, a year hardly sufficed to cure me, and then not entirely.
But I shall take occasion farther on to speak of this melancholy event.
I now return to the recital of facts, which prove that I could, with more
reason than