The cadets would occasionally take a pique at some of their captains, or determine to revenge themselves on others to whom they owed a grudge. They then resolved to banish them from society, and to reduce them to the necessity of putting themselves under a sort of arrest. Four or five of the cadets undertook to execute the design. They fastened on their victim; pursued him into every company, and he was not suffered to open his mouth without being methodically and logically contradicted, though always with a strict regard to politeness: at length the poor fellow found that retirement was his only alternative.
“On another occasion,” Napoleon used to relate, “one of my comrades who lodged above me unluckily took a fancy to learn to play the horn, and made such a hideous noise as completely disturbed the studies of those who were within hearing. We met each other one day on the stairs; ‘Are you not tired of practising the horn?’ said I. ‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘At any rate, you tire other people.’ ‘I am sorry for it.’ ‘It would be better if you went to practise elsewhere.’ ‘I am master of my own apartment.’ ‘Perhaps you may be taught to entertain a doubt on that point.’ ‘I scarcely think any one will be bold enough to attempt to teach me that.’” A challenge ensued; but before the antagonists met, the affair was submitted to the consideration of a council of the cadets, and it was determined that the one should practise the horn at a greater distance, and that the other should be more accommodating.
In the campaign of 1814, the Emperor again met his horn-player in the neighbourhood of Soissons or Laon: he was residing on his estate, and gave some important information respecting the enemy’s position. The Emperor made him one of his aides-de-camp; this officer was Colonel Bussy.
When attached to his artillery-regiment, Napoleon seized every opportunity of mingling in company, where he invariably made an agreeable impression. Women at that time attached a high value to wit in the other sex; it was a quality which never failed to win their good graces. Napoleon, at this period, performed what he termed his Sentimental Journey from Valence to Mont-Cenis in Burgundy, and he intended to write an account of it after the manner of Sterne. The faithful Desmazzis was of the party: he was constantly with him, and his narrative of Napoleon’s private life, if combined with the details of his public career, would form a perfect history of the Emperor. It would then be seen that, however extraordinary his life might be with respect to its incidents, yet nothing could be more simple or natural than its course.