along the beach he turned and saw me on duty ten paces from him.
" 'Well, Genestas,' he said, as he came towards me, 'so we are not yet
dead, either of us?'
"It cut me to the heart to hear him say that. If you had heard him,
you would have shuddered from head to foot, as I did. He
pointed to
the villainous English
vessel that was keeping the entrance to the
Harbor. 'When I see THAT,' he said, 'and think of my Guard, I wish
that I had perished in that
torrent of blood.'
"Yes," said Genestas, looking at the doctor and at La Fosseuse, "those
were his very words.
" 'The generals who counseled you not to
charge with the Guard, and
who
hurried you into your traveling
carriage, were not true friends of
yours,' I said.
" 'Come with me,' he cried
eagerly, 'the game is not ended yet.'
" 'I would
gladly go with your Majesty, but I am not free; I have a
motherless child on my hands just now.'
"And so it happened that Adrien over there prevented me from going to
St. Helena.
" 'Stay,' he said, 'I have never given you anything. You are not one
of those who fill one hand and then hold out the other. Here is the
snuff-box that I have used though this last
campaign. And stay on in
France; after all, brave men are wanted there! Remain in the service,
and keep me in
remembrance. Of all my army in Egypt, you are the last
that I have seen still on his legs in France.' And he gave me a little
snuff-box.
" 'Have "Honneur et patrie" engraved on it,' he said; 'the history of
our last two
campaigns is summed up in those three words.'
"Then those who were going out with him came up, and I spent the rest
of the morning with them. The Emperor walked to and fro along the
beach; there was not a sign of
agitation about him, though he frowned
from time to time. At noon, it was considered
hopeless for him to
attempt to escape by sea. The English had found out that he was at
Rochefort; he must either give himself up to them, or cross the
breadth of France again. We were wretchedly
anxious; the minutes
seemed like hours! On the one hand there were the Bourbons, who would
have shot Napoleon if he had fallen into their clutches; and on the
other, the English, a dishonored race: they covered themselves with
shame by flinging a foe who asked for
hospitality away on a desert
rock, that is a stain which they will never wash away. Whilst they
were
anxiously debating, some one or other among his suite presented a
sailor to him, a Lieutenant Doret, who had a
scheme for reaching
America to lay before him. As a matter of fact, a brig from the States
and a merchant
vessel were lying in the harbor.
" 'But how could you set about it, captain?' the Emperor asked him.
" 'You will be on board the merchant
vessel, Sire,' the man answered.
'I will run up the white flag and man the brig with a few
devotedfollowers. We will
tackle the English
vessel, set fire to her, and
board her, and you will get clear away.'
" 'We will go with you!' I cried to the captain. But Napoleon looked
at us and said, 'Captain Doret, keep yourself for France.'
"It was the only time I ever saw Napoleon show any
emotion. With a
wave of his hand to us he went in again. I watched him go on board the
English
vessel, and then I went away. It was all over with him, and he
knew it. There was a
traitor in the harbor, who by means of signals
gave
warning to the Emperor's enemies of his presence. Then Napoleon
fell back on a last
resource; he did as he had been wont to do on the
battlefield: he went to his foes instead of letting them come to him.
Talk of troubles! No words could ever make you understand the misery
of those who loved him for his own sake."
"But where is his snuff-box?" asked La Fosseuse.
"It is in a box at Grenoble," the commandant replied.
"I will go over to see it, if you will let me. To think that you have
something in your possession that his fingers have touched! . . . Had
he a well-shaped hand?"
"Very."
"Can it be true that he is dead? Come, tell me the real truth?"
"Yes, my dear child, he is dead; there is no doubt about it."
"I was such a little girl in 1815. I was not tall enough to see
anything but his hat, and even so I was nearly crushed to death in the
crowd at Grenoble."
"Your coffee and cream is very nice indeed," said Genestas. "Well,
Adrien, how do you like this country? Will you come here to see
mademoiselle?"
The boy made no answer; he seemed afraid to look at La Fosseuse.
Benassis never took his eyes off Adrien; he appeared to be
reading the
lad's very soul.
"Of course he will come to see her," said Benassis. "But let us go
home again, I have a pretty long round to make, and I shall want a
horse. I daresay you and Jacquotte will manage to get on together
whilst I am away."
"Will you not come with us?" said Genestas to La Fosseuse.
"Willingly," she answered; "I have a lot of things to take over for
Mme. Jacquotte.
They started out for the doctor's house. Her visitors had raised La
Fosseuse's spirits; she led the way along narrow tracks, through the
loneliest parts of the hills.
"You have told us nothing about yourself, Monsieur l'Officier," she
said. "I should have liked to hear you tell us about some adventure in
the wars. I liked what you told us about Napoleon very much, but it
made me feel sad. . . . If you would be so very kind----"
"Quite right!" Benassis exclaimed. "You ought to tell us about some
thrilling adventure during our walk. Come, now, something really
interesting like that business of the beam in Beresina!"
"So few of my recollections are worth telling," said Genestas. "Some
people come in for all kinds of adventures, but I have never managed
to be the hero of any story. Oh! stop a bit though, a funny thing did
once happen to me. I was with the Grand Army in 1805, and so, of
course, I was at Austerlitz. There was a great deal of skirmishing
just before Ulm surrendered, which kept the
cavalry pretty fully
occupied. Moreover, we were under the command of Murat, who never let
the grass grow under his feet.
"I was still only a sub-
lieutenant in those days. It was just at the
opening of the
campaign, and after one of these affairs, that we took
possession of a district in which there were a good many fine estates;
so it fell out that one evening my
regiment bivouacked in a park
belonging to a handsome
chateau where a
countess lived, a young and
pretty woman she was. Of course, I meant to lodge in the house, and I
hurried there to put a stop to pillage of any sort. I came into the
salon just as my quartermaster was pointing his carbine at the
countess, his
brutal way of asking for what she certainly could not
give the ugly
scoundrel. I struck up his carbine with my sword, the
bullet went through a looking-glass on the wall, then I dealt my
gentleman a back-handed blow that stretched him on the floor. The
sound of the shot and the cries of the
countess fetched all her people
on the scene, and it was my turn to be in danger.
" 'Stop!' she cried in German (for they were going to run me through
the body), 'this officer has saved my life!'
"They drew back at that. The lady gave me her
handkerchief (a fine
embroidered
handkerchief, which I have yet), telling me that her house
would always be open to me, and that I should always find a sister and
a
devoted friend in her, if at any time I should be in any sort of
trouble. In short, she did not know how to make enough of me. She was
as fair as a
wedding morning and as
charming as a
kitten. We had
dinner together. Next day, I was distractedly in love, but next day I
had to be at my place at Guntzburg, or
wherever it was. There was no
help for it, I had to turn out, and started off with my
handkerchief.
"Well, we gave them battle, and all the time I kept on
saying to
myself, 'I wish a
bullet would come my way! Mon Dieu! they are flying
thick enough!'
"I had no wish for a ball in the thigh, for I should have had to stop
where I was in that case, and there would have been no going back to
the
chateau, but I was not particular; a nice wound in the arm I
should have liked best, so that I might be nursed and made much of by
the
princess. I flung myself on the enemy, like mad; but I had no sort
of luck, and came out of the action quite safe and sound. We must
march, and there was an end of it; I never saw the
countess again, and
there is the whole story."
By this time they had reached Benassis' house; the doctor mounted his
horse at once and disappeared. Genestas recommended his son to
Jacquotte's care, so the doctor on his return found that she had taken
Adrien completely under her wing, and had installed him in M.
Gravier's
celebrated room. With no small
astonishment, she heard her
master's order to put up a simple camp-bed in his own room, for that
the lad was to sleep there, and this in such an
authoritative tone,
that for once in her life Jacquotte found not a single word to say.
After dinner the commandant went back to Grenoble. Benassis'
reiterated assurances that the lad would soon be restored to health
had taken a weight off his mind.
Eight months later, in the earliest days of the following December,
Genestas was ap
pointed to be
lieutenant-colonel of a
regimentstationed at Poitiers. He was just thinking of
writing to Benassis to
tell him of the journey he was about to take, when a letter came from
the doctor. His friend told him that Adrien was once more in sound
health.
"The boy has grown strong and tall," he said; "and he is wonderfully
well. He has profited by Butifer's
instruction since you saw him last,
and is now as good a shot as our smuggler himself. He has grown brisk
and active too; he is a good walker, and rides well; he is not in the
least like the lad of sixteen who looked like a boy of twelve eight
months ago; any one might think that he was twenty years old. There is
an air of self-reliance and
independence about him. In fact he is a
man now, and you must begin to think about his future at once."
"I shall go over to Benassis to-morrow, of course," said Genestas to
himself, "and I will see what he says before I make up my mind what to
do with that fellow," and with that he went to a
farewell dinner given
to him by his brother officers. He would be leaving Grenoble now in a
very few days.
As the
lieutenant-colonel returned after the dinner, his servant
handed him a letter. It had been brought by a
messenger, he said, who
had waited a long while for an answer.
Genestas recognized Adrien's hand
writing, although his head was
swimming after the toasts that had been drunk in his honor; probably,
he thought, the letter merely contained a request to
gratify some
boyish whim, so he left it unopened on the table. The next morning,
when the fumes of
champagne had passed off, he took it up and began to
read.
"My dear father----"
"Oh! you young rogue," was his
comment, "you know how to coax whenever
you want something."
"Our dear M. Benassis is dead----"
The letter dropped from Genestas' hands; it was some time before he
could read any more.
"Every one is in
consternation. The trouble is all the greater
because it came as a sudden shock. It was so
unexpected. M.
Benassis seemed
perfectly well the day before; there was not a
sign of ill-health about him. Only the day before
yesterday he
went to see all his patients, even those who lived
farthest away;
it was as if he had known what was going to happen; and he spoke
to every one whom he met,
saying, 'Good-bye, my friends,' each
time. Towards five o'clock he came back just as usual to have
dinner with me. He was tired; Jacquotte noticed the purplish flush
on his face, but the weather was so very cold that she would not
get ready a warm foot-bath for him, as she usually did when she
saw that the blood had gone to his head. So she has been wailing,
poor thing, through her tears for these two days past, 'If I had
ONLY given him a foot-bath, he would be living now!'
"M Benassis was hungry; he made a good dinner. I thought that he
was in higher spirits than usual; we both of us laughed a great
deal, I had never seen him laugh so much before. After dinner,
towards seven o'clock, a man came with a message from Saint
Laurent du Pont; it was a serious case, and M. Benassis was