because he was shot through the neck at the siege of St. Jean d'Acre.
He is a Gascon, like myself, and I fear that he gives some ground to
those who accuse my countrymen of being a little talkative and
quarrelsome. But monsieur smiles?'

'You are mistaken.'

'I thought that perhaps something which I had said might have amused
monsieur. I thought that possibly he meant that Gascons really were
quarrelsome, instead of being, as I contend, the mildest race in
France--an opinion which I am always ready to uphold in any way which
may be suggested. But, as I say, Lannes is a very valiant man, though,
occasionally, perhaps, a trifle hot-headed. The next man is Auguereau.'

I looked with interest upon the hero of Castiglione, who had taken
command upon the one occasion when Napoleon's heart and spirit had
failed him. He was a man, I should judge, who would shine rather in war
than in peace, for, with his long goat's face and his brandy nose, he
looked, in spite of his golden oak-leaves, just such a long-legged,
vulgar, swaggering, foul-mouthed old soldier as every barrack-room can
show. He was an older man than the others, and his sudden promotion had
come too late for him to change. He was always the Corporal of the
Prussian Guard under the hat of the French Marshal.

'Yes, yes; he is a rough fellow,' said Gerard, in answer to my remark.
'He is one of those whom the Emperor had to warn that he wished them to
be soldiers only with the army. He and Rapp and Lefebvre, with their
big boots and their clanking sabres, were too much for the Empress's
drawing-room at the Tuileries. There is Vandamme also, the dark man
with the heavy face. Heaven help the English village that he finds his