Napoleon ... With A Convulsion

Napoleon Suffed with a Convulsion.

I received instructions to accompany Napoleon to Strasburg, so as to be ready to follow his headquarters according to circumstances (September, 1805). An attack which the emperor suffered at the beginning of this campaign alarmed me peculiarly.

The very day of his departure from Strasburg I had been dining with him; on rising from the table he went alone to the Empress Josephine's apartments, and after a few moments came out again in an abrupt manner. I was in the drawing room; he took me by the arm and brought me to his room. M. de Remusat, his first chamberlain, who had certain instructions to get, and was afraid Napoleon might go without giving them to him, entered at the same time. We were barely in when the emperor fell to the floor. He scarce had time to tell me to close the door. I tore open his neckerchief, as he seemed to be suffocating. He did not vomit; he groaned and foamed at the mouth. M. de Remusat gave him some water; I inundated him with eau-de-cologne. He had something in the nature of convulsion, which ceased in about a quarter of an hour.

We seated him in an armchair. He began to speak again, dressed himself, urged upon us to say nothing of this occurrence, and half an hour later he was on the road to Carlsruhe. On reaching Stuttgart he let me know how he was. His letter ended with the word: "I am well. The duke (of Wurtemberg) came to meet me as far as outside the first gate of his palace. He is a clever man." Another letter of his, from Stuttgart, and dated the same day, said: "I have heard of Mack's doings. He is getting on as if I led him by the hand myself. He will be trapped in Ulm like a clodhopper."--Tulleyrand's Memoirs in Century.