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ANECDOTES OF MURAT.

that very little of it is known. The following anecdote will, however, throw a some light upon the extreme humility of his early condition in life. After his elevation to the rank of a prince of the French empire, he halted, in: the close of the last war, at a small town in Germany, where he stayed for two or three days; and on finding the bread prepared for his table of an inferior kind, he dispatched one of his suite to order the best baker in the town to attend him, to receive from him his directions respecting this precious article of life. A baker who had been long established in the place was selected for this purpose; and upon the aide-de-camp ordering him to wait upon the prince immediately, he observed, to the no little surprise of the officer-" It is useless my going, the prince "will never employ me." Upon being pressed to state his reasons, he declined assigning any; but as the order of the messenger was peremptory, he followed him, and was immediately admitted to Murat, with whom he stayed. about ten minutes, and then retired. As he quitted the house in which the prince lodged, he observed to the aidede-camp, "I told you the prince would not employ me"he has dismissed me with this," displaying a purse of ducats. Upon being again pressed to explain the reason. of this singular conduct, he replied, "The Prince Murat, "when a boy, was apprenticed to a biscuit baker in the

south of France, at the time I was a journeyman to him,

ANECDOTES OF MURAT.

357

"and I have often threshed him for being idle-the mo"ment he saw me just now, he instantly remembered me, " and without entering into the subject of our antient ac

quaintance, or of that which led me to his presence, he 'hastily took this purse of ducats from the drawer of the "table where he sat, gave it to me, and ordered me to "retire."

The heroic courage which Murat displayed in the campaign of 1797, when in conjunction with Duphoz, at the head of their respective divisions, they plunged into the deep and impetuous stream of Tagliamento, gained the opposite banks, and drove the Austrians, headed by their able and amiable general, the Archduke Charles, as far as the confines of Carnithia and Carniola. The numerous battles. in which he distinguished himself in Egypt, and afterwards at Montebello and Marengo, where, at the head of his cavalry, he successfully supported the brilliant and eventful movement of Dessaix, will rank him in the page of history amongst the most illustrious of those consummate generals, which the fermentation of the French revolution. has elevated from the depths of obscurity. In Egypt he was high in the confidence of Napoleon, whom he accompanied with Lasnes, Andreossi, Bessieres, and several members of the Egyptian Institute, when Buonaparte effected his memorable passage from his army to Frejus, in

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DOUBLE ENTENDRE..

August 1799. Upon the death of General Le Clerc, who was united to a sister of Napoleon, Murat paid his addresses to, and espoused his widow, with the entire approbation of his great comrade in arms, by whom he was, upon his elevation to the imperial throne, created a prince of the empire, and at length raised to the rank of a sovereign. He is reserved and unostentatious, and is seldom visible to his people. Some of the Westphalians, who are attached to the antient order of things, have a joke amongst themselves at the expence of their new prince, whose christian name being Joachim, they pronounce it with an accompanying laugh, Jachim, which means " drive him away;" and there is very little difference in the pronunciation.

As Dusseldorf had infinitely less charms for me than it had for the Grand Duchess, I was as well pleased to quit it, as she was disinclined to enter it; so mounting my cabriolet, for which I was obliged to make the best bargain I could with the postmaster, I set off for Cologne, the road to which is far more pleasant than any other part of the duchy which I saw, though the whole is very flat. About six miles from Dusseldorf, I passed a beautiful country palace of the Grand Duke, called Benrad, composed of a range of semicircular buildings detached from each other, standing upon the summit of a gentle slope, at the bottom of which is a

MURAT'S COUNTRY PALACE.

359

large circular piece of water. The Grand Duke makes this place his principal residence, and very seldom goes to that in the neighbourhood of the city more than twice in the week, to give audience and transact affairs of state, which, as the government is entirely despotic, are managed with ease and dispatch. The appearance of the bodyguard at the entrance announced that the prince was at this place when I passed it: the grounds and gardens, seen from the road, appear to be tastefully arranged. Although the road is sandy, yet it is infinitely preferable, I was informed, to crossing the ferry at Dusseldorf, and proceeding by that route to Cologne. After passing Muhlheim, a very neat town, the suburbs of which, adorned with some handsome country houses, I entered, about a mile further, the village of Deutz, and beheld the venerable city of Cologne, separated by the Rhine, immediately before me. At one end of the village is a large convent of Carmelites, and on the day of my arrival a religious fete was celebrating, at which nearly all the population of the place and neighbourhood assisted, and the streets were enlivened with little booths, in which crosses. and ornaments of gold lace and beads were tastefully exposed to the eye..

The bell of the flying bridge summoned me on board,. and in about five minutes I found myself in the French em

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THE FLYING BRIDGE.

pire, attended by French custom-house officers in green costume, who conducted me to the Douane. This ferry cannot fail to impress the mind and excite the curiosity of a stranger: it is formed of a broad platform resting upon two large barges, like our coal lighters; from this platform a vast wooden frame in the shape of a gallows is erected, which is fastened to the former by strong chains of iron, whilst from the centre cross piece, a chain of the same metal of great length, is fixed to the top of an upright pole standing in each of a long line of boats, the remotest of which is at anchor; by this machinery a powerful pressure is obtained; to each of the barges a rudder is affixed, which, upon being placed in an oblique direction, produces a lateral motion upon the stream, which acts as a force from above; so that by changing the rudder to the right or left, the bridge is forced on one side or the other of the river, with equal certainty and celerity. Fifteen hundred persons can with perfect ease be transported at the same time upon these; bridges, and carriages and horses are driven upon them without any stoppage, from the banks to which they are lashed, until put in motion. The Germans call this machine the Fliegende Schiffs-Brücke, or the volant bridge of boats; the Dutch geer burg, or the bridge in shackles, in allusion to its chains; and the French le pont volant, or the flying bridge.