eighteen thousand men, who were appointed to protect our
maritime establishments, or, in case of necessity, reinforce the
active army.

[Footnote 97: _Les marins._ Properly, perhaps, the
seamen, whom Napoleon took from the ships of war,
and converted into soldiers.--_Tr._]

The cavalry of the imperial guard and the old grenadiers opened their
ranks to ten thousand soldiers selected from the flank companies; the
light artillery was re-organized; and the young guard received an
addition of several regiments.

But it was not sufficient to restore to the army the forces, of which
it had been deprived; it was equally necessary, to repair its
destitution: the foot wanted arms and clothing, the cavalry had
neither saddles nor horses.

The Emperor looked to all these things.

Levies and purchases of horses were made at once in all the
departments.

The gendarmerie, by giving up the ten thousand horses belonging to it,
which it replaced immediately, supplied the heavy cavalry with so many
horses already trained, which in ten days rendered its numerous
squadrons complete.

Spacious manufactories of clothing, arms, and equipage, were opened at
once in all parts.

The Emperor caused an account of the number of workmen, and the
produce of their labour, to be delivered to him every morning. He knew
how long it took a tailor to finish a soldier's dress, a wheelwright
to construct a carriage, or an armourer to fit up a musket. He knew
the quantity of arms, in a good or bad state, contained in the
arsenals. "You will find," he wrote to the minister at war, "in such
an arsenal, so many old muskets, and so many broken up. Set a hundred
men at work there, and arm me five hundred men a week." Such was the
extent and variety of Napoleon's genius, that he soared without effort
to the loftiest abstractions of the art of governing, and descended
with the same facility to the minutest details of management.

Extraordinary commissioners were employed at the same time to direct
the repairing and fortifying of the frontier towns. They employed
themselves day and night on this important business. But the slightest
delay appeared to the Emperor an age of expectation, and frequently he
put his hand to the work himself. He was perfectly acquainted with the
nature of the fortifications of every place, the number of men it
ought to contain, and the approaches necessary to be defended; a