I have seen Napoleon being criticised for not accepting the Dresden(or Frankfurt) proposal but here is reasoning completely makes sense.
During the Battle of Heilsberg, on 10 June 1807, Murat was surrounded at the height of a mêlée by 12 Russian dragoons. Lasalle was in command of three brigades of light cavalry which contained the "Hellish Brigade", two lancer regiments, and five horse chasseur regiments. Lasalle saw Murat in trouble and charged at the enemy, killing the officer who commanded the detachment and putting 11 dragoons on the run, saving Murat's life.
Moments later in the swirling combat, Lasalle himself became isolated and hard-pressed by enemy cavalry. Murat, now remounted with his reserves, countercharged to save Lasalle in turn. The two gripped hands amid the chaos, with Murat declaring, "General, we are even now".
Lasalle had a long standing affair with Joséphine d'Aiguillon, wife of General Victor Leopold Berthier (Marshal Berthier's brother). When Berthier finally had enough and divorced Joséphine, Lasalle was quick to propose to her. To help out with the costs for the wedding, Napoleon gave 200.000 Francs to Lasalle. When the two men met up only a week after, Napoleon was keen to know how the planning was coming along. Lasalle remarked that he had spent the money on old debt and the rest he had gambled.
Normally this kind of insolence would have seen any other soldier stripped from rank and scorned, but Napoleon simply gave Lasalle another 200.000 Francs, and told him to get on with it. When an astonished prefect asked why Lasalle got such a soft treatment, Napoleon quietly answered: “It only takes a stroke of a pen to create a prefect, but it takes twenty years to make a Lasalle".
During Napoleon's 1798-99 Egyptian campaign, French forces pursued Mamluk remnants after victory at the Pyramids. Davout's division (where Lasalle was serving as cavalry captain) advanced up the Nile toward Qena, facing Osman Bey's cavalry at Redemieh, a minor but fierce clash.
Davout, then a general of brigade, became isolated and surrounded by Mamluk horsemen wielding curved swords. One attacker closed in to deliver a fatal blow as Davout parried others. Lasalle spotted the danger, spurred his horse through the melee, and struck first severing both hands of Davout's assailant with a saber thrust. Lasalle then targeted Osman Bey himself, breaking his sword on the Mamluk leader's helmet. He seized a fresh blade from a fallen foe and another from the ground, slashing relentlessly until the Mamluks broke and fled, saving Davout and securing the field.
The sole account is in the diary of John Wilson Croker, as told to him by Wellington when Croker visited him at Walmer Castle (official residence of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports) on 1 October 1834. Croker asked him a question about Nelson’s reputation for egotistical and vain behaviour, and received the following reply:
“Why,” said the Duke, “I am not surprised at such instances, for Lord Nelson was, in different circumstances, two quite different men, as I myself can vouch, though I only saw him once in my life, and for, perhaps, an hour. It was soon after I returned from India. I went to the Colonial Office in Downing Street, and there I was shown into a little waiting-room on the right hand, where I found, also waiting to see the Secretary of State, a gentleman whom, from his likeness to his pictures and the loss of an arm, I immediately recognized as Lord Nelson.
He could not know who I was, but he entered at once into conversation with me, if I can call it conversation, for it was almost all on his side, and all about himself, and in really a style so vain and so silly as to surprise and almost disgust me. I suppose something that I happened to say may have made him guess that I was somebody, and he went out of the room for a moment, I have no doubt to ask the office-keeper who I was, for when he came back he was altogether a different man, both in manner and matter. All that I had thought a charlatan style had vanished, and he talked of the state of this country and of the aspect and probabilities of affairs on the Continent with a good sense, and a knowledge of subjects both at home and abroad that surprised me equally and more agreeably than the first part of our interview had done; in fact, he talked like an officer and a statesman.
The Secretary of State kept us long waiting, and certainly for the last half or three quarters of an hour I don’t know that I ever had a conversation that interested me more. Now, if the Secretary of State had been punctual, and admitted Lord Nelson in the first quarter of an hour, I should have had the same impression of a light and trivial character that other people have had, but luckily I saw enough to be satisfied that he was really a very superior man; but certainly a more sudden and complete metamorphosis I never saw.”'
1—Napoleon's mother, Madame Mère (Letizia), experienced extreme distress. She cried loudly in her residence in Rome before taking to her bed for two weeks.
2—Talleyrand, upon hearing the news, said, "This is no longer an event; merely a piece of news."
3—Eugène de Beauharnais and his wife held a private mass and wore mourning clothes for some time (even though they continued to attend parties).
4—Bernadotte reportedly wept privately and said, "Napoleon was the greatest military leader that had appeared on earth since Caesar."
5—Davout, in a letter to César Laville, said, "I miss him much more than I expected."
6—George IV of England, when told by a servant that his greatest enemy was dead, replied, "Is she, by God?"
George IV mistook the servant's report of Napoleon's death for news of his hated wife Caroline.
Share some others you know of
A — Henri-Gatien Bertrand, Grand Marshal.
B — Charles Tristan de Montholon, general and companion.
C — Francesco Antommarchi, doctor and personal physician.
D — Angelo Paolo Vignali, abbé and assistant chaplain.
E — Fanny Bertrand, countess and wife of Bertrand.
F — Napoléon Bertrand, son of Fanny Bertrand.
G — Hortense Bertrand, daughter of Fanny Bertrand.
H — Henry Bertrand, son of Fanny Bertrand.
I — Arthur Bertrand, youngest son of Fanny Bertrand.
J — Louis Marchand, valet.
K — Louis Étienne Saint-Denis (“Ali”), servant and librarian.
L — Mary “Betsy” Hall, Ali’s wife and governess/nursemaid.
M — Jean Abraham Noverraz, servant.
N — Joséphine Brulé, Countess Montholon’s lady’s maid.
O — Jean Baptiste Alexandre Pierron, cook and dessert specialist.
P — Jacques Chandelier, cook.
Q — Jacques Coursot, butler.
R — Francis Burton, doctor and surgeon.
S — Archibald Arnott, doctor and surgeon.
T — William Crokat, captain and orderly officer.
Source — https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/articles/who-was-present-at-napoleons-death/
On 20th April 1814, Napoleon walked down the steps of the Fontainebleau Palace, approached the soldiers of his guard and delivered his farewell:
"Soldiers of my Old Guard, I bid you farewell. For twenty years you have been my constant companions on the road to honour and glory. In these latter times, as in the days of our prosperity, you have never ceased to be models of courage and fidelity. With men such as you our cause would not have been lost; but the war would have been interminable; it would have been a civil war, and France would only have become unhappier still. I have therefore sacrificed all of our interests to those of the Nation.
I shall depart. But you, my friends, continue to serve France. Her happiness was my only thought; it shall continue to be the object of my desires. Do not lament my fate; the only reason I have allowed myself to survive was so that I could further serve our glory. I want to write down the great deeds which we have done together. Adieu, my children! I wish I could press you all to my heart. Let me at least embrace your standard...!"
At these words, General Petit, seized the aigle and stepped forward. Napoleon took the general in his arms and kissed the standard. The silence which this great scene imposed was broken only by the sobs of the soldiers. Napoleon, visibly moved, pulled himself together and began again with a stronger voice:
"Once again, adieu, my old companions! May this last kiss pass to your hearts!"
His exact birth date is not known but it's generally accepted to be 1st May, 1769.
However, the historian Ernest Lloyd states: "The registry of St. Peter's Church, Dublin, shows that he was christened there on 30 April 1769"