In the month of November of this year, the First Consul returned to Boulogne to visit the fleet, and to review the troops who were already assembled in the camps provided for the army with which he proposed to descend on England. I have preserved a few notes and many recollections of my different sojourns at Boulogne. Never did the Emperor make a grander display of military power; nor has there ever been collected at one point troops better disciplined or more ready to march at the least signal of their chief; and it is not surprising that I should have retained in my recollections of this period details which no one has yet, I think, thought of publishing. Neither, if I am not mistaken, could any one be in a better position than I to know them. However, the reader will now judge for himself.
In the different reviews which the First Consul held, he seemed striving to excite the enthusiasm of the soldiers, and to increase their attachment for his person, by assiduously taking advantage of every opportunity to excite their vanity.
One day, having especially noticed the excellent bearing of the Thirty-
sixth and Fifty-seventh regiments of the line, and Tenth of light infantry, he made all the officers, from corporal to colonel, come forward; and, placing himself in their midst, evinced his satisfaction by recalling to them occasions when, in the past under the fire of cannon, he had remarked the bearing of these three brave, regiments. He complimented the sub-officers on the good drilling of the soldiers, and the captains and chiefs of battalion on the harmony and precision of their evolutions. In fine, each had his share of praise.
This flattering distinction did not excite the jealousy of the other corps of the army, for each regiment had on that day its own share of compliments, whether small or great; and when the review was over, they went quietly back to their quarters. But the soldiers of the Thirty-
sixth, Fifty-seventh, and Tenth, much elated by having been so specially favored, went in the afternoon to drink to their triumph in a public house frequented by the grenadiers of the cavalry of the Guard. They began to drink quietly, speaking of campaigns, of cities taken, of the First Consul, and finally of that morning's review. It then occurred to the young men of Boulogne, who were among the drinkers, to sing couplets of very recent composition, in which were extolled to the clouds the bravery and the exploits of the three regiments, without one word of praise for the rest of the army, not even for the Guard; and it was in the favorite resort of the grenadiers of the Guard that these couplets were sung! These latter maintained at first a gloomy silence; but soon finding it unendurable, they protested loudly against these couplets, which they said were detestable. The quarrel became very bitter; they shouted, heaped insults on each other, taking care not to make too much noise; however, and appointed a meeting for the next day, at four o'clock in the morning, in the suburbs of Marquise, a little village about two leagues from Boulogne. It was very late in the evening when these soldiers left the public house.
More than two hundred grenadiers of the Guard went separately to the place of meeting, and found the ground occupied by an almost equal number of their adversaries of the Thirty-sixth, Fifty-seventh, and Tenth.
Wasting no time in explanations, hardly a sound being heard, each soldier drew his sword, and for more than an hour they fought in a cool, deliberate manner which was frightful to behold. A man named Martin, grenadier of the Guard, and of gigantic stature, killed with his own hand seven or eight soldiers of the Tenth. They would probably have continued till all were massacred if General Saint-Hilaire, informed too late of this bloody quarrel, had not sent out in all haste a regiment of cavalry, who put an end to the combat. The grenadiers had lost two men, and the soldiers of the line thirteen, with a large number of wounded on both sides.
The First Consul visited the camp next day, and had brought before him those who had caused this terrible scene, and said to them in a severe tone: "I know why you fought each other; many brave men have fallen in a struggle unworthy of them and of you. You shall be punished. I have given orders that the verses which have been the cause of so much trouble shall be printed. I hope that, in learning your punishment, the ladies of Boulogne will know that you have deserved the blame of your comrades in arms."