I was in the Emperor's apartment when the King of Naples entered, and saw him for the first time. I did not know to what cause to attribute it, but I noticed that the Emperor did not give his brother-in-law as cordial a welcome as in the past. Prince Murat said that he could no longer remain idle at Naples, knowing that the French army to which he still belonged was in the field, and he asked only to be allowed to fight in its ranks. The Emperor took him with him to the parade, and gave him the command of the Imperial Guard; and a more intrepid commander would have been difficult to find. Later he was given the general command of the cavalry.
During the whole time of the armistice, spun out rather than filled with the slow and useless conferences of the Congress of Prague, it would be impossible to describe the various labors in which the Emperor occupied himself from morning till evening, and often far into the night. He could frequently be seen bending over his maps, making, so to speak, a rehearsal of the battles he meditated. Nevertheless, greatly exasperated by the slowness of the negotiations as to the issue of which he could no longer delude himself, he ordered, shortly before the end of July, that everything should be prepared and in readiness for a journey he intended making as far as Mayence. He made an appointment to meet the Empress there; and as she was to arrive on the 25th, the Emperor consequently arranged his departure so as to arrive only a short time after. I recall this journey only as a fact, since it was signalized by nothing remarkable, except the information the Emperor received at this time of the death of the Duke of Abrantes, who had just succumbed at Dijon to a violent attack of his former malady. Although the Emperor was already aware that he was in a deplorable state of mental alienation, and must consequently have expected this loss, he felt it none the less sensibly, and sincerely mourned his former aide-decamp.
The Emperor remained only a few days with the Empress, whom he met again with extreme pleasure. But as important political considerations recalled him, he returned to Dresden, visiting several places on his route, and the 4th of August we returned to the capital of Saxony.
Travelers who had seen this beautiful country only in a time of peace would have recognized it with difficulty. Immense fortifications had metamorphosed it into a warlike town; numerous batteries had been placed in the suburbs overlooking the opposite bank of the Elbe. Everything assumed a warlike attitude, and the Emperor's time became so completely and entirely absorbed that he remained nearly three days without leaving his cabinet.
Nevertheless, in the midst of the preparations for war all arrangements were made to celebrate on the 10th of August the Emperor's fete, which had been advanced five days, because, as I have previously observed, the armistice expired precisely on the anniversary of Saint-Napoleon; and, as may be readily inferred from his natural passion for war, the resumption of hostilities was not an addition to his fete which he would be likely to disdain.
There was at Dresden, as had been customary at Paris, a special representation at the theater on the evening before the Emperor's fete.