24th, having met Augereau at a little distance from Valence, he stopped
his carriage and immediately alighted. Augereau did the same, and they
cordially embraced in the presence of the Commissioners. It was remarked
that in saluting Napoleon took off his hat and Augereau kept on his.
"Where are you going?", said the Emperor; "to Court?"--"No, I am going to
Lyons."--"You have behaved very badly to me." Augereau, finding that the
Emperor addressed him in the second person singular, adopted the same
familiarity; so they conversed as they were accustomed to do when they
were both generals in Italy. "Of what do you complain?" said he.
"Has not your insatiable ambition brought us to this? Have you not
sacrificed everything to that ambition, even the happiness of France?
I care no more for the Bourbons than for you. All I care for is the
country." Upon this Napoleon turned sharply away from the Marshal,
lifted his hat to him, and then stepped into his carriage. The
Commissioners, and all the persons in Napoleon's suite, were indignant at
seeing Augereau stand in the road still covered, with his hands behind
his back, and instead of bowing, merely making a contemptuous salutation
to Napoleon with his hand. It was at the Tuileries that these haughty
Republicans should have shown their airs. To have done so on the road to
Elba was a mean insult which recoiled upon themselves.

--[The following letter, taken from Captain Bingham's recently
published selections from the Correspondence of the first Napoleon,
indicates in emphatic language the Emperor's recent dissatisfaction
with Marshal Augereau when in command at Lyons daring the "death
straggle" of 1814:

To Marshal Augereau.

NOGENT, 21st February, 1814,