and all the persons attached to the service of Pius VII. had presents more or less considerable, all these various articles being brought by the furnishers to the apartments of his Majesty, where I took a list of them, by order of his Majesty, as they arrived.
The Holy Father also made in return very handsome presents to the officers of the Emperor's household whose duties had brought them near his person during his stay at Paris.
From Stupinigi we went to Alexandria. The Emperor, the next day after his arrival, rose early, visited the fortifications of the town, reviewed all the positions of the battlefield of Marengo, and returned only at seven o'clock, and after having broken down five horses. A few days after he wished the Empress to see this famous plain, and by his orders an army of twenty-five or thirty thousand men was assembled. The morning of the day fixed for the review of these troops, the Emperor left his apartment dressed in a blue coat with long skirts, much worn, and even with holes in some places. These holes were the work of moths and not of balls, as has been said in certain memoirs. On his head his Majesty wore an old hat edged with gold lace, tarnished and frayed, and at his side a cavalry saber, such as the generals of the Republic wore; this was the coat, hat, and sword that he had worn on the day of the battle of Marengo. I afterwards lent these articles to Monsieur David, first painter to his Majesty, for his picture of the passage of Mont St.
Bernard. A vast amphitheater had been raised on this plain for the Empress and the suite of their Majesties; the day was perfect, as is each day of the month of May in Italy. After riding along the ranks, the Emperor took his seat by the side of the Empress, and made to the troops a distribution of the cross of the Legion of Honor, after which he laid the corner stone of a monument, which he had directed to be raised on the plain to the memory of the soldiers who had fallen on the battlefield.
When his Majesty, in the short address which he made to the army on this occasion, pronounced in a strong voice, vibrating with emotion, the name of Desaix, who here died gloriously for his country, a murmur of grief ran through the ranks of the soldiers. As for me, I was moved to tears;
and as my eyes fell on this army, on its banners, on the costume of the Emperor, I was obliged to turn from time to time towards the throne of her Majesty the Empress, to realize that this was not the 14th of June in the year 1800.
I think it was during this stay at Alexandria, that Prince Jerome Bonaparte had an interview with the Emperor, in which the latter seriously and earnestly remonstrated with his brother, and Prince Jerome left the cabinet visibly agitated. This displeasure of the Emperor arose from the marriage contracted by his brother, at the age of nineteen, with the daughter of an American merchant.
His Majesty had this union annulled on the plea of minority, and made a decree forbidding the officers of the civil state to receive, on their registers, the record of the certificate of the celebration of the marriage of Monsieur Jerome with Mademoiselle Patterson. For some time the Emperor treated him with great coolness, and kept him at a distance;
but a few days after the interview at Alexandria, he sent him to Algiers to claim as subjects of the Empire two hundred Genoese held as slaves.
The young prince acquitted himself handsomely of this mission of humanity, and returned in the month of August to the port of Genoa, with the captives whom he had just released. The Emperor was well satisfied with the manner in which his brother had carried out his instructions, and said on this occasion, that "Prince Jerome was very young and very thoughtless, that he needed more weight in his head, but that, nevertheless, he hoped to make something of him."
This brother of his Majesty was one among the few persons whom he really loved, although he had often given him just cause for anger.