ld go by Miranda
and Burgos, where the presence of French troops on the roads made the
way perfectly safe. I should have liked very much to be the bearer, but
I was in such pain and so tired that it would have been physically
impossible for me to ride hard. The marshal therefore entrusted the duty
to his brother-in-law, Major Gueheneuc. I handed him the despatches
stained with my blood. Major Saint-Mars, the secretary, wished to
re-copy them and change the envelope. 'No, no,' cried the marshal, 'the
Emperor ought to see how valiantly Captain Marbot has defended them.' So
he sent off the packet just as it was, adding a note to explain the
reason of the delay, eulogising me, and asking for a reward to
Lieutenant Tassin and his men, who had hastened so zealously to my
succour, without reckoning the danger to which they might have been
exposed if the enemy had been in force.

The Emperor did, as a matter of fact, a little while after, grant the
Cross both to M. Tassin and to his sergeant, and a gratuity of 100
francs to each of the men who had accompanied them. As for the Norman
soldier, he was tried by court martial for deserting his post in the
presence of the enemy, and condemned to drag a shot for two years, and
to finish his time of service in a pioneer company.

_EYLAU. THE MARE LISETTE_

GENERAL MARBOT, one of Napoleon's most distinguished soldiers, thus
describes his adventures at the battle of Eylau. 'To enable you to
understand my story, I must go back to the autumn of 1805, when the
officers of the Grand Army, among their preparations for the battle of
Austerlitz, were completing their outfits. I had two good horses, the
third, for whom I was looking, my charger, was to be better still. It
was a difficult thing to find, for though horses were far less dear than
now, their price was pretty high, and I had not much money; but chance
served me admirably. I met a learned German, Herr von Aister, whom I had
known when he was a professor at Soreze. He had become tutor to the
children of a rich Swiss banker, M. Scherer, established at Paris in
partnership with M. Finguerlin. He informed me that M. Finguerlin, a
wealthy man, living in fine style, had a large stud, in the first rank
of which figured a lovely mare, called Lisette, easy in her paces, as
light as a deer, and so well broken that a child could lead her. But
this mare, when she was ridden, had a terrible fault, and fortunately a
rare one: she bit lik