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