regiments, and knew how to use them cleverly so as to flatter the self-esteem of every one, said, when he saw the 44th of the line, 'Of all the corps in my army you are the one in which there are most stripes, so your three battalions count on my line for six.' The soldiers replied with enthusiasm, 'We will prove it before the enemy.' To the 78th Light Infantry, composed mainly of men from Lower Languedoc and the Pyrenees, the Emperor said: 'These are the best marchers in the army; one never sees a man of them fallen out, especially when the enemy has to be met.' Then he added, laughing, 'But to do you justice in full, I must tell you that you are the greatest rowdies and looters in the army.' 'Quite true, quite true!' answered the soldiers, every one of whom had a duck, fowl, or goose in his knapsack."
IX.
THE RISE OF THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD.
In the course of his narrative of war and war's alarms, Marbot stops to tell the well-known story of the rise of the house of Rothschild. When Napoleon had beaten the Prussians, he confiscated the estates of the Elector of Hesse-Cassel as a punishment for his vacillation between the two warring monarchs:
"The avaricious sovereign had amassed a large treasure by selling his own subjects to the English.
