The Emperor Continues Unwell.—Horrible Provisions, Execrable Wine, &C

12th.—To-day the Emperor, although no better than he had been for some days past, determined, as he said, to nurse himself no longer. He dressed and repaired to the drawing-room, where he dictated, for two or three hours, to one of his suite. He had eaten nothing for three days: he had not yet been relieved by the crisis which he expected, and which is usually produced by the singular regimen which he prescribes for himself. He continued drinking warm lemonade. This circumstance led him to inquire how long a person might live without eating, and how far drink might supply the place of solid food. He sent for the Encyclopedia Britannica, in which he met with some very curious facts: for instance, he found that a woman had existed for fifty days without solid food, and drinking only twice. Another instance was mentioned of a person who had lived twenty days upon water alone.

Somebody observed, in reference to this subject, that Charles XII., out of pure contradiction to the opinions of those around him, had abstained from eating for the space of five or six days, at the expiration of which, however, he devoured a turkey and a leg of mutton, at the hazard of bursting. Napoleon laughed at this anecdote, and assured us that he felt no wish to run to such extremes, however attractive the model might be in other respects.

The Emperor played a game at piquet with Madame de Montholon. The Grand Marshal having entered, he left off playing, and asked him how he thought he looked. Bertrand replied, “Only rather sallow;” which was indeed the case. The Emperor rose good-humouredly, and pursued Bertrand into the saloon, in order to catch him by the ear, exclaiming, “Rather sallow, indeed! Do you intend to insult me. Grand Marshal? Do you mean to say that I am bilious, morose, atrabilarious, passionate, unjust, tyrannical! Let me catch hold of your ear, and I will take my revenge.”

The dinner-hour arrived, and the Emperor for some time was undecided whether he would sit down to table with us, or dine alone in his own room. He decided upon the latter plan, lest, as he said, he should be tempted to imitate Charles XII. if he sat at the great table: but he would have found it difficult to do that. He returned while we were at dinner, and, from the scanty way in which our table was served, he said he really pitied us, for in fact we had scarcely any thing to eat. This circumstance induced the Emperor to resort to a painful extremity: he instantly gave orders that a portion of his plate should be sold every month, to supply what was necessary for our table. The worst thing connected with our wretched dinner was the wine, which had for some days been execrable, and had made us all unwell. We were obliged to send for some to the camp, in the hope that that which had been furnished to us would be changed, as we could not drink it.

In the course of a conversation which took place respecting the wine, the Emperor stated that he had received a great number of instructions and directions from chemists and physicians, all of whom had concurred in declaring that wine and coffee were the two things respecting which it was most necessary he should be on his guard. Every professional man had cautioned him to reject both wine and coffee if he found any unpleasant flavour in them. Wine, in particular, he was advised to abstain from, if he found any thing uncommon in the taste of it. He had always been in the habit of getting his wine from Chambertin, and had therefore, seldom occasion to find fault with it; but the case is different now, if he had refused wine whenever he found any thing uncommon in it, he must have abstained from it for a considerable time past.