And mark Soult, the coming man of the Marshals when he gets his chance; a wary old dog-fox for an enemy to tackle. A sergeant of infantry in the old “Royal Regiment” of former days, the old 13th of the Line, then a drill-instructor of Volunteers, now he is at the head of the Army at Boulogne for the descent on England. Hardly even the Emperor knows more about tactics than Soult. Note how self-possessed and masterful he looks, so cold and impassive of demeanour. Those eyes that seem to pierce through you, those clear-cut aquiline features, that face like a mask of bronze, show the character of the man. You wouldn’t think though, to see his fine soldier-like figure as he stands there, a warrior born to look at, that Soult is not only lame from a fall from his horse years ago, but has limped from his birth, from a club-foot. That bald-headed marshal over there is Marshal Davout, a dashing subaltern of Dragoons once in the Old Royal Army. A fine tactician for a hot place is Davout; and when the fight has been won, no leader so harsh and pitiless to the vanquished enemy. He wears spectacles on service: he can hardly see ten yards in front of his big nose. The ladies are very fond of Davout; he waltzes so nicely. And that other there is Marshal Ney; “the Indefatigable” is the Army’s name for him. He never spares himself, nor the enemy, on the battlefield; but after the last shot there is no more generous victor than Marshal Ney. For sheer dogged pluck against odds, for simply marvellous intrepidity, the world cannot match Ney. Stalwart and square-shouldered, he carries himself with all the jaunty assurance of manner you would expect in perhaps the most dashing leader of hussars the Army of France has known. He is an Alsatian, born by the Rhine; a pleasant-faced man, with frank grey eyes, curly red hair over a broad open forehead. “Red Michael” is one of the soldiers’ names for Ney; and there is not one of the Marshals for whom his men would do more. [Sidenote: THE EAGLES AWAIT NAPOLEON] Such, if it may be permitted to describe them in this way, is something of what the Marshals of Napoleon looked like on the day of the Eagle presentation on the Field of Mars. All eyes were turned on the Marshals as they stood there beside Napoleon; a brilliant array of soldierly figures in their red ostrich-plumed cocked hats, richly laced uniforms, gleaming brass-bound sword-scabbards and high jack-boots with clanking brass spurs.