Perhaps tne most typical case, however, was that of Junot, who thought it unconscionable that he should observe the regulations he had signed himself. One day when, dressed in mufti, he was galloping along one of the lateral avenues of the Boulevard des Invalides, a man on picket duty challenged him and told him that riders must keep to the middle of the high road. Seeing Junot shrug his shoulders, the man seized the horse's bridle and they went off to have it out at the police station. There the sergeant displayed the instructions bearing the stamped signature of the Town Mayor, which ordered sentries to allow none but pedestrians along the sides of the Boulevard.
7 am the Town Mayor!' shouted Junot in a rage.
'That's not possible,' retorted the other, 'for you would then be at variance with yourself/
'And anyhow,' added a fusilier, 'we don't recognize the Town Mayor in civvies.*
All of which was perfectly logical and could have been settled in a trice. But the Great Chief was beside himself. He dragged the unfortunate sergeant - who really deserved to be congratulated — to the Invalides, had him locked up at the Abbey for twenty-four hours, and cashiered the fusilier, guilty of recognizing generals only in uniform.
Other exploits of Junot's might be cited, which give no better account of his sense of proportion: a ridiculous scene at Garchf s ice-cream shop, and more outrageous still, a game of billiards with cafe waiters in an. establishment in the Champs-ISlysees, which ended in a frightful quarrel and a battle with cues.
But people were surely very narrow-minded to take offence at these freaks? Were not the officers of the Empire free to amuse themselves as they chose? They might, for instance, do a moonlight flit and have their furniture removed by armed infantrymen under their landlord's nose; disturb the sleep of the inhabitants of the Boulevard du Temple and beat up the watch when they interfered; enjoy a choice supper in a cafe of the Palais du Tribunat and cudgel the proprietor instead of paying him; they could even go to an enclosed nunnery in the same quarter, force their way in, smash everything up and wound a woman with a sabre cut.
Did they perhaps show a little more consideration when their amorous enterprises were undertaken in other circles? It would hardly seem so, in the light of this dialogue between a superior staff officer and a good shopkeeper's wife, whose daughter he had just accosted in very gross terms: 'Monsieur, my daughter is an honest girl!' c So much the better, that's how I like them/ And the same cynicism is apparent in an incident that Dubois considers worth relating at length;
Having just lunched with some friends at a draper's house in the Rue des Petits-Champs, a certain Aubry, a major in the 12th Infantry, caught sight of an attractive young lady in the window of a house opposite, and determined to go up to her apartment, accompanied by a lieutenant of his corps.
At the first words addressed to her she waxed indignant, tried to throw the men out, called her aunt who was living with her, the doorkeeper and another tenant of the house. As the two officers persisted, and made to beset the 'pretty hussy', she retaliated by slapping their faces. Not to be outdone, Aubry then slapped her face in return and broke his cane on her head so that a piece of it shot into the street. A Homeric struggle was needed to get rid of the boors, and when the prefecture had completed its investigation, it was found that their victim was a Mile Decres, that she belonged to one of the best Brussels families, and had come to Paris to obtain a post at Court, in the service of the Empress. She would be able to give Josephine an idea of the upbringing of some of her husband's officers.
While manners such as these were current, the life of the civilian population could not always be rose-coloured; but the days of warfare in lace ruffles was over, and it was not altogether surprising that a certain number of cads should penetrate the ranks of the epic heroes. The finest tapestries have a strange appearance when looked at on the wrong side.
CHAPTER XIX. EVERYDAY LIFE AND PUBLIC HOLIDAYS
Parisian Military Festivals-Wet flags-August 15, under the Empire — Enthusiasm after Tilsit — A maker of barometers turned poet - Hymen and pork-butchery - The awakening of Angeline
IN THE daily life of a city like Paris, public festivals are not only necessary interludes but a valuable means of propaganda, which governments make use of for the benefit of their policy. There had never been so many great days of rejoicing in the streets as there were during the Revolution, and neither the Directory nor the Consulate allowed them to fall into abeyance. For reasons easily understood, the Empire merely set to work to alter their character by devoting them in most cases to the celebration of the fame of our arms.
This became apparent from 1804 onwards, when, three days after the Coronation, a grand military ceremony took place on the Champ de Mars: the Distribution of the Eagles. On that occasion, unfortunately, the civilian population cold-shouldered Napoleon. Gusts of melted snow swept down on the crowd, to the great detriment of the gold-laced uniforms and the ladies* dresses. While the troops marched past in a sea of mud, the spectators in the stands soon found they had had enough of it, and Josephine herself quitted the scene, leaving Caroline Murat, with her bare shoulders, to be the last to hold out. Here and there on the flooded plain a few enthusiasts hung on, but the Day of Flags, so brilliant in the picture at Versailles, had really been mostly the Day of Umbrellas.
This was the case with only too many of the military fetes in Paris. There were few interludes in the war during the summer season; it was nearly always in bad weather that rejoicings were organized in honour of the crack troops passing through the capital. When the Imperial Guard did so in November 1807^ it was treated, oddly enough to a banquet in the Champs-Elysees - a meal that a deluge of rain turned into an aquatic entertainment.
For August 15, however, which from the beginning of the Consulate had been the great annual holiday, one was usually sure of fine weather. Its main defect was lack of originality. Gunfire and maroons in the morning, jousts on the Seine in the afternoon, with the famous Forioso announcing, on occasion, that he was going to cross the river on a tight-rope, and making himself scarce at the last moment; open-air theatres in Marigny Square, pantomimes, acrobats, tumblers; or tourneys between knights picking up rings with the tips of their lances; then in the evening the inevitable fireworks, the ascension of a luminous balloon, and a grand ball at Tivoli — enough to amuse the sightseers and allow the newspapers to declare next day that the festival of August 15 had never been so brilliant.
There was also a certain monotony-and a great deal of exaggeration — in the accounts of the rejoicings called forth by our victories. Of course a glorious bulletin from the Army leaves nobody unmoved, and Mme de Remusat was unfair when she declared that 'the feeling of French vanity is not very common among the Parisians'. Still, great events did not always provoke the delirious enthusiasm among the crowd that the press and the police reports took such pains to describe. History, as seen from the street, no longer looked the same on the eve of Austerlitz as it did on the morrow of Marengo.
That year, 1805, the country was going through an alarming financial crisis. Recamier's bank had stopped payment, several bankruptcies resulted, and a number of industries were at a standstill. At the beginning of the autumn, therefore, people were none too pleased to see our armies taking the field again.
When on November 26 an early morning gun announced the taking of Vienna, the horizon brightened for a time. There was a rush for the gazettes, and people spent a fortune in candles for the fairy lamps. But this flash of rejoicing did not last long. Next day everybody reverted to 'their unsatisfactory personal affairs, the scarcity of money, the excessive interest demanded for it, and the slackness in commercial operations'. And a fortnight later the great news of Auster-litz- which some papers spelt Osterlitz, because we have never been good at geography-was welcomed by official demonstrations rather than by the raptures of the population. This was particularly noticeable on January 1, when the Tribunate went with great solemnity to hand over to the Senate the flags taken from the enemy. On that day Cam-baceres allowed himself to be deluded by the plaudits, without inquiring where they came from. But a more acute observer, Fievee, wrote to Napoleon: "A proportion of the people had so evidently been paid, that public decency was affronted/