Note 142 — Chapter LIX

"Napoleon, on the following day, visited the places where the action had been fought, and gazing with an angry look on the position which Junot had occupied, he exclaimed, 'It was there that the Westphalians should have attacked! all the battle was there! what was Junot about?' His irritation became so violent, that nothing could at first allay it. He called Rapp, and told him to 'take the command from the Duke of Abrantes:—he had lost his marshal's staff without retrieve! this blunder would probably block the road to Moscow against them; that to him, Rapp, he should intrust the Westphalians.' But Rapp refused the place of his old companion in arms; he appeased the Emperor, whose anger always subsided quickly, as soon as it had vented itself in words."—Ségur, tom. i., p. 259; Rapp, p. 191.