CHAPTER XII.

In the month of November of this year, the First Consul returned to
Boulogne to visit the fleet, and to review the troops who were already
assembled in the camps provided for the army with which he proposed to
descend on England. I have preserved a few notes and many recollections
of my different sojourns at Boulogne. Never did the Emperor make a
grander display of military power; nor has there ever been collected at
one point troops better disciplined or more ready to march at the least
signal of their chief; and it is not surprising that I should have
retained in my recollections of this period details which no one has yet,
I think, thought of publishing. Neither, if I am not mistaken, could any
one be in a better position than I to know them. However, the reader
will now judge for himself.

In the different reviews which the First Consul held, he seemed striving
to excite the enthusiasm of the soldiers, and to increase their
attachment for his person, by assiduously taking advantage of every
opportunity to excite their vanity.

One day, having especially noticed the excellent bearing of the Thirty-
sixth and Fifty-seventh regiments of the line, and Tenth of light
infantry, he made all the officers, from corporal to colonel, come
forward; and, placing himself in their midst, evinced his satisfaction by
recalling to them occasions when, in the past under the fire of cannon,
he had remarked the bearing of these three brave, regiments. He
complimented the sub-officers on the good drilling of the soldiers, and
the captains and chiefs of battalion on the harmony and precision of
their evolutions. In fine, each had his share of praise.