"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.
Cambaceres was known to be the best shot in the French army; but I, who
am a pretty good hand at a snipe, thought a man was bigger, and that I
could wing him if I had a mind.
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