But no more of that. Go up, Phil, you divvle, and offer her Majesty the choice of punch or negus."Among the young fellows with whom I was most intimate in Paris was Eugene Beauharnais, the son of the ill-used and unhappy Josephine by her former marriage with a French gentleman of good family.
Having a smack of the old blood in him, Eugene's manners were much more refined than those of the new-fangled dignitaries of the Emperor's Court, where (for my knife and fork were regularly laid at the Tuileries) I have seen my poor friend Murat repeatedly mistake a fork for a toothpick, and the gallant Massena devour pease by means of his knife, in a way more innocent than graceful.
Talleyrand, Eugene, and I used often to laugh at these eccentricities of our brave friends; who certainly did not shine in the drawing-room, however brilliant they were in the field of battle.
The Emperor always asked me to take wine with him, and was full of kindness and attention.
"I like Eugene," he would say, pinching my ear confidentially, as his way was--"I like Eugene to keep company with such young fellows as you; you have manners; you have principles; my rogues from the camp have none. And I like you, Philip my boy," he added, "for being so attentive to my poor wife--the Empress Josephine, I mean."All these honors made my friends at the Marquis's very proud, and my enemies at Court crever with envy. Among these, the atrocious Cambaceres was not the least active and envenomed.
The cause of the many attentions which were paid to me, and which, like a vain coxcomb, I had chosen to attribute to my own personal amiability, soon was apparent. Having formed a good opinion of my gallantry from my conduct in various actions and forlorn hopes during the war, the Emperor was most anxious to attach me to his service. The Grand Cross of St. Louis, the title of Count, the command of a crack cavalry regiment, the l4me Chevaux Marins, were the bribes that were actually offered to me; and must I say it?
Blanche, the lovely, the perfidious Blanche, was one of the agents employed to tempt me to commit this act of treason.
"Object to enter a foreign service!" she said, in reply to my refusal. "It is you, Philip, who are in a foreign service. The Irish nation is in exile, and in the territories of its French allies. Irish traitors are not here; they march alone under the accursed flag of the Saxon, whom the great Napoleon would have swept from the face of the earth, but for the fatal valor of Irish mercenaries! Accept this offer, and my heart, my hand, my all are yours. Refuse it, Philip, and we part.""To wed the abominable Cambaceres!" I cried, stung with rage. "To wear a duchess's coronet, Blanche! Ha, ha! Mushrooms, instead of strawberry-leaves, should decorate the brows of the upstart French nobility. I shall withdraw my parole. I demand to be sent to prison--to be exchanged--to die--anything rather than be a traitor, and the tool of a traitress!" Taking up my hat, I left the room in a fury; and flinging open the door tumbled over Cambaceres, who was listening at the key-hole, and must have overheard every word of our conversation.
We tumbled over each other, as Blanche was shrieking with laughter at our mutual discomfiture. Her scorn only made me more mad; and, having spurs on, I began digging them into Cambaceres' fat sides as we rolled on the carpet, until the Marshal howled with rage and anger.
"This insult must be avenged with blood!" roared the Duke of Illyria.
"I have already drawn it," says I, "with my spurs.""Malheur et malediction!" roared the Marshal.
"Hadn't you better settle your wig?" says I, offering it to him on the tip of my cane, "and we'll arrange time and place when you have put your jasey in order." I shall never forget the look of revenge which he cast at me, as I was thus turning him into ridicule before his mistress.
"Lady Blanche," I continued bitterly, "as you look to share the Duke's coronet, hadn't you better see to his wig?" and so saying, Icocked my hat, and walked out of the Marquis's place, whistling "Garryowen."I knew my man would not be long in following me, and waited for him in the Place Vendome, where I luckily met Eugene too, who was looking at the picture-shop in the corner. I explained to him my affair in a twinkling. He at once agreed to go with me to the ground, and commended me, rather than otherwise, for refusing the offer which had been made to me. "I knew it would be so," he said, kindly; "I told my father you wouldn't. A man with the blood of the Fogarties, Phil my boy, doesn't wheel about like those fellows of yesterday." So, when Cambaceres came out, which he did presently, with a more furious air than before, I handed him at once over to Eugene, who begged him to name a friend, and an early hour for the meeting to take place.
"Can you make it before eleven, Phil?" said Beauharnais. "The Emperor reviews the troops in the Bois de Boulogne at that hour, and we might fight there handy before the review.""Done!" said I. "I want of all things to see the newly-arrived Saxon cavalry manoeuvre:" on which Cambaceres, giving me a look, as much as to say, "See sights! Watch cavalry manoeuvres! Make your soul, and take measure for a coffin, my boy!" walked away, naming our mutual acquaintance, Marshal Ney, to Eugene, as his second in the business.
I had purchased from Murat a very fine Irish horse, Bugaboo, out of Smithereens, by Fadladeen, which ran into the French ranks at Salamanca, with poor Jack Clonakilty, of the 13th, dead, on the top of him. Bugaboo was too much and too ugly an animal for the King of Naples, who, though a showy horseman, was a bad rider across country; and I got the horse for a song. A wickeder and uglier brute never wore pig-skin; and I never put my leg over such a timber-jumper in my life. I rode the horse down to the Bois de Boulogne on the morning that the affair with Cambaceres was to come off, and Lanty held him as I went in, "sure to win," as they say in the ring.
