The noblest character among Napoleon’s marshals was beyond doubt Adrien Moncey, Duc de Conégliano. He was born at Besançon in 1754, and enlisted at the age of fifteen, simply that he might not be a charge to his parents. From his father, the barrister, he had picked up a smattering of education, while Nature had given him a talent for drawing. He looked so small and young when he was brought before the colonel of the Franche Comté regiment for enrollment, that the latter, who was quite a young man—the Count de Survilliers—asked him, laughing, whether he had been tipsy from “drinking too much milk” when he fell into the hands of the recruiting sergeant. The sergeant, by way of proving that young Moncey had been quite sober when he had put on the white cockade (which was like taking the king’s shilling in England), produced a cleverly executed caricature of himself which the boy had drawn; upon which M. de Survilliers predicted that so accomplished a recruit would quickly win an epaulette. This promise came to nothing, for in 1789, after twenty years’ service, Moncey was only a lieutenant. It was a noble trait in him that in after years he never spoke resentfully of his slow promotion. He used to say that he had been thoroughly well-trained, and he alluded kindly to all his former officers. After Napoleon’s overthrow, Moncey’s conduct was most chivalrous; he privately blamed Ney’s betrayal of the Bourbons, for it was not in his nature to approve of double-dealing, but he refused to sit in judgment upon his former comrade. Marshal Victor was sent to shake his resolution, but Moncey repeated two or three times: “I do not think I should have acted as Ney did, but I believe he acted according to his conscience and did well; ordinary rules do not apply to this case.” He eventually became governor of the Invalides, and it fell to him in 1840 to receive Napoleon’s body when it was brought from St. Helena. It was remarked at the time that if Napoleon himself could have designated the man who was to discharge this pious duty, he would have chosen none other than Moncey, or Oudinot, who by a happy coincidence became governor of the Invalides in 1842 after Moncey’s death. Nicolas Oudinot, Duc de Reggio, was surnamed the Modern Bayard. He was born in 1767, and like Moncey enlisted in his sixteenth year. He was wounded thirty-two times in action, but was so little of a braggart that in going among the old pensioners of the Invalides he was never heard to allude to his own scars. At Friedland a bullet went through both his cheeks, breaking two molars. “These Russians do not know how to draw teeth,” was his only remark, as his wound was being dressed.