celerity with which this crowned soldier had acquired the appearance of a
sovereign belonging to an old line, while he still preserved the language
and appearance of a soldier. One day he asked the hereditary Prince of
Baden: "What did you do yesterday?" The young Prince replied with some
embarrassment that he had strolled about the streets. "You did very
wrong," said Napoleon. "What you ought to have done was to visit the
fortifications and inspect them carefully. How can you tell? Perhaps some
day you will have to besiege Mayence. Who would have told me when I was a
simple artillery officer walking about Toulon that I should be destined to
take that city?" It was at Mayence that the treasures unjustly extorted
from the German Princes were restored to them. It was at Mayence that
Gutenberg's name for the first time received formal homage.

General de Segur, In his Memoirs, narrates an anecdote about Napoleon's
stay in this old German city. The Emperor had gone incognito and without
escort to an island in the Rhine, not far from the town. As he was walking
in this almost deserted island, he noticed a wretched hut in which a poor
woman was lamenting that her son had been drafted. "Console yourself,"
said Napoleon, without letting her know who he was, and giving her an
assumed name: "Come to Mayence to-morrow and ask for me; I have some
influence with the ministers and I will try to help you." The poor woman
appeared punctually. With delight and surprise she saw that the stranger
was the Emperor of the French. Napoleon delighted to tell her that her
house which had been destroyed by the war should be rebuilt, that he would
give her a little herd and several acres of land, and that her son should
be restored to her.

A letter in the _Moniteur_ thus described the departure of Napoleon and
Josephine: "Mayence, 11 Vendemiaire (October 3). The Empress left
yesterday for Paris, by way of Saverne and Nancy. The Emperor is just