‘With the army I generally travelled in a carriage during the day with a good, thick pelisse on, because night is the time when a commander-in-chief should work,’ Napoleon said years later. ‘If he fatigues himself uselessly during the day, he will be too tired to work in the evening … If I had slept the night before Eggmühl I could never have executed that superb manoeuvre, the finest I ever made … I multiplied myself by my activity. I woke up Lannes by kicking him repeatedly; he was so sound asleep.’
