“Did you recognise him?”
“De Montluc is his name, sire—a Colonel of Chasseurs.”
“Tut,” said the Emperor. “We have got the poor pawn, but the hand which plays the game is still out of our reach.” He sat in silent thought for a little, with his chin sunk upon his chest. “Ah, Talleyrand, Talleyrand,” I heard him mutter, “if I had been in your place and you in mine, you would have crushed a viper when you held it under your heel. For five years I have known you for what you are, and yet I have let you live to sting me. Never mind, my brave,” he continued, turning to me, “there will come a day of reckoning for everybody, and when it arrives, I promise you that my friends will be remembered as well as my enemies.”
“Sire,” said I, for I had had time for thought as well as he, “if your plans about these papers have been carried to the ears of your enemies, I trust you do not think that it was owing to any indiscretion upon the part of myself or of my comrades.”
“It would be hardly reasonable for me to do so,” he answered, “seeing that this plot was hatched in Paris, and that you only had your orders a few hours ago.”
“Then how—?”
“Enough,” he cried, sternly. “You take an undue advantage of your position.”
That was always the way with the Emperor. He would chat with you as with a friend and a brother, and then when he had wiled you into forgetting the gulf which lay between you, he would suddenly, with a word or with a look, remind you that it was as impassable as ever. When I have fondled my old hound until he has been encouraged to paw my knees, and I have then thrust him down again, it has made me think of the Emperor and his ways.
He reined his horse round, and I followed him in silence and with a heavy heart. But when he spoke again his words were enough to drive all thought of myself out of my mind.
“I could not sleep until I knew how you had fared,” said he. “I have paid a price for my papers. There are not so many of my old soldiers left that I can afford to lose two in one night.”
When he said “two” it turned me cold.
“Colonel Despienne was shot, sire,” I stammered.
“And Captain Tremeau cut down. Had I been a few minutes earlier, I might have saved him. The other escaped across the fields.”
I remembered that I had seen a horseman a moment before I had met the Emperor. He had taken to the fields to avoid me, but if I had known, and Violette been unwounded, the old soldier would not have gone unavenged. I was thinking sadly of his swordplay, and wondering whether it was his stiffening wrist which had been fatal to him, when Napoleon spoke again.
“Yes, Brigadier,” said he, “you are now the only man who will know where these papers are concealed.”
It must have been imagination, my friends, but for an instant I may confess that it seemed to me that there was a tone in the Emperor’s voice which was not altogether one of sorrow. But the dark thought had hardly time to form itself in my mind before he let me see that I was doing him an injustice.
“Yes, I have paid a price for my papers,” he said, and I heard them crackle as he put his hand up to his bosom. “No man has ever had more faithful servants—no man since the beginning of the world.”
As he spoke we came upon the scene of the struggle. Colonel Despienne and the man whom we had shot lay together some distance down the road, while their horses grazed contentedly beneath the poplars. Captain Tremeau lay in front of us upon his back, with his arms and legs stretched out, and his sabre broken short off in his hand. His tunic was open, and a huge blood-clot hung like a dark handkerchief out of a slit in his white shirt. I could see the gleam of his clenched teeth from under his immense moustache.
The Emperor sprang from his horse and bent down over the dead man.
“He was with me since Rivoli,” said he, sadly. “He was one of my old grumblers in Egypt.”
And the voice brought the man back from the dead. I saw his eyelids shiver. He twitched his arm, and moved the sword-hilt a few inches. He was trying to raise it in a salute. Then the mouth opened, and the hilt tinkled down on to the ground.
“May we all die as gallantly,” said the Emperor, as he rose, and from my heart I added “Amen.”
There was a farm within fifty yards of where we were standing, and the farmer, roused from his sleep by the clatter of hoofs and the cracking of pistols, had rushed out to the roadside. We saw him now, dumb with fear and astonishment, staring open-eyed at the Emperor. It was to him that we committed the care of the four dead men and of the horses also. For my own part, I thought it best to leave Violette with him and to take De Montluc’s grey with me, for he could not refuse to give me back my own mare, whilst there might be difficulties about the other. Besides, my little friend’s wound had to be considered, and we had a long return ride before us.
The Emperor did not at first talk much upon the way. Perhaps the deaths of Despienne and Tremeau still weighed heavily upon his spirits. He was always a reserved man, and in those times, when every hour brought him the news of some success of his enemies or defection of his friends, one could not expect him to be a merry companion. Nevertheless, when I reflected that he was carrying in his
