Before and after Waterloo: Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802; 1814; 1816)Stanley, Edward
History
Before and after Waterloo: Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802; 1814; 1816)
Stanley, Edward
Europe -- Description and travel; France -- History -- Consulate and First Empire, 1799-1815
I will describe a few while their countenances are fresh upon my memory.
Ney[66] is a fine, handsome man, but remarkably fair with light curling
hair, and struck us very like Mrs. Parker, of Astle.
Duc d'Istria[67] was reckoned by Robert Hibbert like me--that is to say,
he had dark arched eyebrows, a fox-like sort of countenance, very dark,
almost swarthy, and from his extreme bilious appearance, I should
imagine might be troubled, like myself, with bad headaches.
Davoust![68] I can scarcely recall his portrait without shuddering. If
ever an evil spirit peeped thro' the visage of a human being, it was in
Davoust. Every bad passion seemed to have set its mark on his face:
nothing grand, warlike, or dignified. It was all dark, cruel, cunning,
and malevolent. His body, too, seemed to partake of his character. I
should fancy he was rather deformed. I never saw so good a Richard III.
Let him pass and make way for one of a different description,
Victor,[69] a fine, open, gentlemanly countenance, tho' not like a
military hero. Marmont, a dark haired, sharp-looking man of military
stature. Duc de Dantzig,[70] very ugly and squinting. Berthier,[71]
remarkably quiet and intelligent. Murat,[72] an effeminate coxcomb with
no characteristic but that of self-satisfaction. Moncey, a respectable
veteran. Massèna,[73] the most military of all, dark hair and
countenance, fine figure. Soult,[74] a stern soldier, vulgar but
energetic; his mouth and lower part of his face like Edridge,[75] though
not so large a man.
The King was to me a very secondary person; however, I was close to him
as he tottered, like a good old well-meaning man, to Mass. On his return
he appeared, as I described last Sunday, in the balcony facing the
gardens for a few minutes and was loudly cheered, and then he came back
to the Salle des Maréchaux and sat down in a fine chair of Bonaparte's,
covered all over with his Bees, in a Balcony facing the Place de
Carousel, from whence he looked down on the 10,000 troops who were there
assembled. The shouts here were not what they ought to have been.
Comparatively few cried "God bless him!" and I much fear the number who
thought it was still less. The Duc de Berri,[76] on horseback with
Marshal Moncey on one side and Du Pont[77] on the other, reviewed the
troops, who passed in companies and troops before them. As each company
passed the officer held up his sword and cried "Vive le Roi!" and some
of the soldiers did the same, but not more than one out of ten.
I heard an anecdote of the Duc de Berri which is, I hope, true. A few
days ago in reviewing some troops on the Champs Elysées an officer in
passing chose to cry out, "Vive Napoléon!" upon which the Duc rode up
to him, tore his Epaulette from his shoulder and order from his breast,
threw them on the ground, and instantly dismissed him the service; this
spirit pleased the soldiers, and they all shouted "Vive le Roi!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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