n so often narrated in my
presence by Madame Bonaparte, that I am familiar with the ludicrous
details. Carrat slept in a room adjoining which there was a closet.
A hole was made in the wall between these rooms, and a string passed
through, at the end of which was tied a can filled with water, this
cooling element being suspended exactly over the head of the patient's
bed. This was not all, for they had also taken the precaution to remove
the slats which supported the mattress; and as Carrat was in the habit of
going to sleep without a light, he saw neither the preparations for his
downfall, nor the can of water provided for his new baptism. All the
members of the plot had been waiting for some moments in the adjoining
closet; when he threw himself heavily upon his bed, it crashed in, and at
the same instant the play of the string made the can of water do its
effective work. The victim at the same time of a fall, and of a
nocturnal shower-bath, Carrat cried out against his double misfortune.
"This is horrible," he yelled at the top of his voice; while Hortense
maliciously said aloud to her mother, Madame de Crigny (afterwards Madame
Denon), Madame Charvet, and to several others in the room, "Oh, Mamma,
those toads and frogs in the water will get on him." These words, joined
to the utter darkness, served only to increase the terror of Carrat, who,
becoming seriously frightened, cried out, "It is horrible, Madame, it is
horrible, to amuse yourself thus at the expense of your servants."

I do not say that the complaints of Carrat were entirely wrong, but they.
served only to increase the gayety of the ladies who had taken him for
the object of their pleasantries.

However that may be, such was the character and position of Carrat, whom
I had known for some time, when General Bonaparte returned from his
expedition into Egypt, and Carrat said to me that Eugene de Beauharnais
had applied to him for a confidential valet, his own having been detained
in Cairo by severe illness at the time of his departure. He was named
Lefebvre, and was an old servant entirely devoted to his master, as was
every one who knew Prince Eugene; for I do not believe that there has
ever lived a better man, or one more polite, more considerate, or indeed
more attentive, to those who served him.

Carrat having told me that Eugene de Beauharnais

[Born 1781, viceroy of Italy 1805. In 1806 married the daughter
of the King of Bavaria. Died 1824. Am