Of course, in looking back upon a man who afterwards became an Emperor, the proportions seem to have altered, and he looks greater than his figure actually was.  He is more important in one’s eyes, and therefore from this point of view the event seems to be of greater magnitude than the mere police-court business that it was.  When a man becomes great, the smallest details of his career increase in value and importance.

The Prince had given a man of the name of Charles Pollard into custody for stealing and obtaining by fraud two bills of exchange for L1,000 each.

I was instructed by one Saul (not of Tarsus) to defend, and old Saul thought it would be judicious to cross-examine the Prince into a cocked hat, little dreaming what kind of a cocked hat our opponent would one day wear.

But Saul, not content with this ordinary drum-beating kind of Old Bailey performance, in which there is much more alarm than harm, instructed me to make a few inquiries as to the Prince’s private life, and so show him up in public.  Saul loved that kind of persecution.  To him the witness-box was a pillory, notwithstanding there was more mud attaching to the throwers than to the mere object of their attention.

Young as I was in my profession, I had sense enough to know that to dip into a prosecutor’s private history, and the history of his father and grandfather, and a succession of grandmothers and aunts, was hardly the way to show that the prisoner had not stolen that gentleman’s property, but was a good way to prevent the Prince from recommending him to mercy.

I therefore, in my simplicity, asked old Saul what the uncle of the Prince and his voyage in the Bellerophon, etc., had to do with this man’s stealing these two bills of exchange.

“Never mind, Mr. Hawkins, you do it; it has a great deal to do with it.”

However, I made up my own mind as to the course I should pursue, and having carefully read my “instructions,” found that the man had been unjustly accused by this Napoleon—­there never was a man so trampled on—­and every word of the whole accusation was false. So did some solicitors instruct young counsel in those days.

I started my business of cross-examination, accordingly, with a few tentative questions, testing whether the ice would bear before I took the other foot off dry land.  It did not seem to be very strong, I thought.  Some of them were a little bewildering, perhaps, but that, doubtless, was their only fault, which the Prince was desirous of amending, and he graciously appealed to me in a very sensible manner by suggesting that if I would put a question that he could answer, he would do so.

I thought it a fair offer, even from a Prince, if I could only trust him.  I kept my bargain, and definitely shaped my examination so that “Yes” and “No” should be all that would be necessary.

We got on very well indeed for some little time, his answers coming with great readiness and truth.  He was perfectly straightforward, and so was I.