Corporal," he said to the gendarme, "accompany this carriage, and take it close to that hut at the rear." Monsieur de Chargeboeuf followed the gendarme and stopped his horses behind a miserable cabin, built of mud and branches, surrounded by a few fruit-trees, and guarded by pickets of infantry and cavalry.
It may be said that the majesty of war appeared here in all its grandeur.

From this height the lines of the two armies were visible in the moonlight.

After an hour's waiting, the time being occupied by the incessant coming and going of the aides-de-camp, Duroc himself came for Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne and the marquis, and made them enter the hut, the floor of which was of battened earth like that of a stable.
Before a table with the remains of dinner, and before a fire made of green wood which smoked, Napoleon was seated in a clumsy chair.

His muddy boots gave evidence of a long tramp across country.

He had taken off the famous top-coat; and his equally famous green uniform, crossed by the red cordon of the Legion of honor and heightened by the white of his kerseymere breeches and of his waistcoat, brought out vividly his pale and terrible Caesarian face.