The newly made marshal celebrated this promotion by a ball, at which a trifling incident occurred which made an impression upon me, and which, no doubt, General Forey remembered for some time. He was a very heavy man, of full habit, tall, with a short neck and red complexion, all the more ruddy by contrast with his gray hair and mustache. While waltzing past the general, I saw the light chair upon which he sat suddenly give way with a loud crash under his ponderous weight, and down came the commander-in-chief hard upon the floor. Rumors of his probable downfall were already reaching us, and the appositeness of the situation appealed to us. I jokingly whispered to my partner, a young officer on his staff: "Mon general, vous avez fait la culbute." We both thoughtlessly laughed, and were caught in the act by his Excellency at the moment when, helped to his feet, unhurt, by the bystanders, he was endeavoring to veil under an assumption of increased dignity his consciousness of the absurdity of the accident. He flushed up angrily, and, I was afterward told, never quite forgave the young man for his share in our disrespectful mirth. He was most unpopular. His whole conduct, since his arrival in Mexico, had been characterized by weakness, indecision, and lack of judgment, and he had shown himself in every respect unequal to the difficult task before him. Colonel Loizillon says that, on the way to Puebla, when the generals assembled in council of war differed, instead of deciding the question the commander-in-chief would adjourn, beseechingly saying: "Mon Dieu, tachez donc de vous entendre"* ("Gentlemen, DO try to come to an understanding"). He had allowed himself to be deceived by the French minister to Mexico with the glaring facts before his eyes. As a military chief, his procrastination had given the Mexicans the time they needed fully to organize their defense; and had it not been for General Bazaine's energy and military capacity in urging and successfully carrying out the attack upon the fort of San Xavier, the siege of Puebla, already prolonged far beyond the limits of all likelihood, might have cost the French a still greater expenditure of time and human life. Indeed, it was the openly expressed opinion of many French officers that to famine was principally due the fall of Puebla. "Sans cela nous y serions encore," they would say. * "Lettres sur l'Expedition du Mexique," p. 101. General Forey's elevation had been due mainly to the fact that he was one of the men who had served Napoleon in 1851 in the coup d'etat. Indeed, many of the Emperor's most glaring failures were due to the same cause,--i.e., loyalty to individuals,--which led him to place in responsible positions men of small merit and of less principle who had stood by Caesar and his fortunes.