starvation, it is said, on the authority of one of his ex-valet's
memoirs, that he sent her a box of candied cherries from one of the
most expensive confectionery-shops of Paris.

After a brief sojourn at Lyons, Napoleon was summoned with his
regiment to quell certain popular tumults at Auxonne. There he
distinguished himself as a handler of mobs, and learned a few things
that were of inestimable advantage to him later. Speaking of it in
after-years, he observed: "It is my opinion, my dear Emperor Joseph,
that grape-shot is the only proper medicine for a mob. Some people
prefer to turn the hose on them, but none of that for me. They fear
water as they do death, but they get over water. Death is more
permanent. I've seen many a rioter, made respectable by a good
soaking, return to the fray after he had dried out, but in all my
experience I have never known a man who was once punctured by a
discharge of grape-shot who took any further interest in rioting."

About this time he began to regulate his taciturnity. On occasions
he had opinions which he expressed most forcibly. In 1790, having
gone to an evening reception at Madame Neckar's, he electrified his
hostess and her guests by making a speech of some five hundred words
in length, too long to be quoted here in full, but so full of import
and delivered with such an air of authority that La Fayette, who was
present, paled visibly, and Mirabeau, drawing Madame de Stael to one
side, whispered, trembling with emotion, "Who is that young person?"

Whether this newly acquired tendency to break in upon the reserve
which had hitherto been the salient feature of his speech had
anything to do with it or not we are not aware, but shortly
afterwards Napoleon deemed it wise to leave his regiment for a while,