him, and said, "You deserve the prize, and you shall have it; I make you
captain." And addressing himself to the grand marshal of the palace,
"You will pay twelve hundred francs to the Captain" (the name does not
occur to me), while all cried, "Vive l'Empereur," and congratulated the
new captain on his lucky fall.

In the evening there were fireworks, which could be seen from the coast
of England. Thirty thousand soldiers executed all sorts of maneuvers,
firing sky-rockets from their guns. The crowning piece, which
represented the arms of the Empire, was so fine that for five minutes
Boulogne, the country, and all the coast, were lighted up as if it were
broad daylight.

A few days after these fetes, as the Emperor was passing from one camp to
the other, a sailor who was watching for him in order to hand him a
petition was obliged, as the rain was falling in torrents, and he was
afraid of spoiling the sheet of paper, to place himself under shelter in
an isolated barrack on the shore, used to store rigging. He had been
waiting a long time, and was wet to the skin, when he saw the Emperor
coming from the camp of the left wing at a gallop. Just as his Majesty,
still galloping, was about to pass before the barrack, the brave sailor,
who was on the lookout, sprang suddenly from his hiding place, and threw
himself before the Emperor, holding out his petition in the attitude of a
fencing-master defending himself. The Emperor's horse, startled by this
sudden apparition, stopped short; and his Majesty, taken by surprise,
gave the sailor a disapproving glance, and passed on without taking the
petition which was offered him in so unusual a manner.

It was on this day, I think, that Monsieur Decres, minister of the navy,
had the misfortune to fall into the water, to the very great amusement of