General Mortier is one of the few favourite officers of Bonaparte who have distinguished themselves under his rivals, Pichegru and Moreau, without ever serving under him.  Edward Adolph Casimer Mortier is the son of a shopkeeper, and was born at Cambray in 1768.  He was a shopman with his father until 1791, when he obtained a commission, first as a lieutenant of carabiniers, and afterwards as captain of the first battalion of volunteers of the Department of the North.  His first sight of an enemy was on the 30th of April, 1792, near Quievrain, where he had a horse killed under him.  He was present in the battles of Jemappes, of Nerwinde, and of Pellenberg.  At the battle of Houdscoote he distinguished himself so much as to be promoted to an adjutant general.  He was wounded at the battle of Fleures, and again at the passage of the Rhine, in 1795, under General Moreau.  During 1796 and 1797 he continued to serve in Germany, but in 1798 and 1799 he headed a division in Switzerland from which Bonaparte recalled him in 1800, to command the troops in the capital and its environs.  His address to Bonaparte, announcing the votes of the troops under him respecting the consulate for life and the elevation to the Imperial throne, contain such mean and abject flattery that, for a true soldier, it must have required more self-command and more courage to pronounce them than to brave the fire of a hundred cannons; but these very addresses, contemptible as their contents are, procured him the Field-marshal’s staff.  Mortier well knew his man, and that his cringing in antechambers would be better rewarded than his services in the field.  I was not present when Mortier spoke so shamefully, but I have heard from persons who witnessed this farce, that he had his eyes fixed on the ground the whole time, as if to say, “I grant that I speak as a despicable being, and I grant that I am so; but what shall I do, tormented as I am by ambition to figure among the great, and to riot among the wealthy?  Have compassion on my weakness, or, if you have not, I will console myself with the idea that my meanness is only of the duration of half an hour, while its recompense-my rank-will be permanent.”

Mortier married, in 1799, the daughter of the landlord of the Belle Sauvage inn at Coblentz, who was pregnant by him, or by some other guest of her father.  She is pretty, but not handsome, and she takes advantage of her husband’s complaisance to console herself both for his absence and infidelities.  When she was delivered of her last child, Mortier positively declared that he had not slept with her for twelve months, and the babe has, indeed, less resemblance to him than to his valet de chambre.  The child was baptised with great splendour; the Emperor and the Empress were the sponsors, and it was christened by Cardinal Fesch.  Bonaparte presented Madame Mortier on this occasion with a diamond necklace valued at one hundred and fifty thousand livres.