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Page 16
Your letters say nothing of what I expected to hear. I hope at least to
be informed of the answer from Vienna before any one. I am sorry you
have not paid me back for the battle of Marengo.
The festival of the 14th of July will be very gratifying. We expect
peace as a certainty, and the triumphant return of the First Consul.
The family is all well. Your wife and all her family are at
Mortfontaine. Ney is at Paris. Why do you return with the First Consul?
Peace! and Italy! Think of our last interview. I embrace you.
(Signed) LUCIEN.
On the margin is written--
P.S.--Read the letter addressed to the Consul, and give it to him AFTER
YOU HAVE CAREFULLY CLOSED IT.
Forward the enclosed. Madame Murat never lodged in my house. Her
husband is a fool, whom his wife ought to punish by not writing to him
for a month.
(Signed) LUCIEN BONAPARTE
Bonaparte, confirmed in his power by the victory of Marengo, remained
some days longer at Milan to settle the affairs of Italy. He directed
one to furnish Madame Grassini with money to pay her expenses to Paris.
We departed amidst the acclamations of the inhabitants, and took the road
to Turin. The First Consul stopped at Turin for some hours, and
inspected the citadel, which had bean surrendered to us in pursuance of
the capitulation of Alessandria. In passing over Mont Cenis we observed
the carriage of Madame Kellerman, who was going to meet her husband.
Bonaparte on recognizing the lady stopped his carriage and congratulated
her on the gallant conduct of her husband at the battle of Marengo.
On our arrival at Lyons we alighted at the Hotel des Celestins, and the
loud acclamations of a numerous multitude assembled round the hotel
obliged Bonaparte to show himself on the balcony. Next day he proceeded
to the Square of Bellecour, where, amidst the plaudits of the people, he
laid the first stone of some new buildings destined to efface one of the
disasters of the Revolution.
We left Lyons that evening and continued our journey by way of Dijon.
On our arrival in that town the joy of the inhabitants was very great.
I never saw a more graceful and captivating sight than that which was
presented by a group of beautiful young females, crowned with flowers,
who accompanied Bonaparte's carriage, and which at that period, when the
Revolution had renewed all the republican recollections of Greece and
Rome, looked like the chorus of females dancing around the victor at the
Olympic games.
But all our journey was not so agreeable. Some accidents awaited us.
The First Consul's carriage broke down between Villeneuve-le-Roi and
Sens. He sent a courier to inform my mother that he would stop at her
house till his carriage was repaired. He dined there, and we started
again at seven in the evening.
But we had other disasters to encounter. One of our off-wheels came off,
and as we were driving at a very rapid pace the carriage was overturned
on the bridge at a short distance from Montreau-Faut-Yonne. The First
Consul, who sat on my left, fell upon me, and sustained no injury. My
head was slightly hurt by striking against some things which were in the
pocket of the carriage; but this accident was not worth stopping for, and
we arrived at Paris on the same night, the 2d of July. Duroc, who was
the third in the carriage, was not hurt.
I have already mentioned that Bonaparte was rather talkative when
travelling; and as we were passing through Burgundy, on our return to
Paris from Marengo, he said exultingly, "Well, a few more events like
this campaign, and I may go down to posterity."--"I think," replied I,
"that you have already done enough to secure great and lasting fame."--
"Yes," resumed he, "I have done enough, it is true. In less than two
years I have won Cairo, Paris, and Milan; but for all that, my dear
fellow, were I to die to-morrow I should not at the end of ten centuries
occupy half a page of general history!"
On the very day when Desaix fell on the field of Marengo Kleber was
assassinated by a fanatical Mussulman, named Soleiman Haleby, who stabbed
him with a dagger, and by that blow decided the fate of Egypt.
--["This fellah was, at most, eighteen or twenty years of age: he
was a native of Damascus, and declared that he had quitted his
native city by command of the grand vizier, who had entrusted him
with the commission of repairing to Egypt and killing the grand
sultan of the French [Bonaparte being probably intended]. That for
this purpose alone he had left his family, and performed the whole
journey on foot and had received from the grand vizier no other
money than what was absolutely requisite for the exigencies of the
journey. On arriving at Cairo he had gone forthwith to perform his
devotions in the great mosque, and it was only on the eve of
executing his project that he confided it to one of the scherifs of
the mosque" (Duc de Rovigo's Memoirs, tome 1. p. 367)]--
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