to remain perfectly still, the Italian sun, shining hotly onto my
face, sucked the moisture out of the wax of which my moustache was
made, and, as it dried it pulled at my skin in a most disagreeable
manner. However, I did not blink. I was a Hussar! A word that had
for me an almost magical significance; besides which, having engaged
in a military career, I understood very well that my first duty was
to obey the regulations.

My father and part of his division were still in Nice, when we
heard of the events of the 18th Brumaire, the overthrow of the
Directorate and the establishment of the Consulate. My father had
too much contempt for the Directorate to regret its downfall, but he
feared that, intoxicated by power, General Bonaparte, after
re-establishing order in France, would not restrict himself to the
modest title of consul, and he predicted to us that in a short time
he would aim to become king. My father was mistaken only in the
title, four years later Napoleon made himself emperor.

Whatever his misgivings about the future, my father congratulated
himself on not having been in Paris on the 18th Brumaire, and I
believe that had he been there he might well have opposed the actions
of General Bonaparte, but in the army, at the head of a division
facing the enemy, he was content to adopt the passive obedience of
the soldier. He even rejected proposals, which were made to him by a
number of generals and colonels, to march on Paris at the head of
their troops. "Who," he said to them, "will defend our frontiers if
we abandon them? And what will become of France if, to the war
against foreigners, we add the calamity of civil strife?" By these
wise observations he calmed down the hot-heads; but he was,
nonetheless, very disturbed by the coup which had just taken place: