‘It is the result of system,’ said he.  ’It is as if I had drawers in my brain, so that when I opened one I could close the others.  It is seldom that I fail to find what I want there.  I have a poor memory for names or dates, but an excellent one for facts or faces.  There is a good deal to bear in mind, Monsieur de Laval.  For example, I have, as you have seen, my one little drawer full of the ships upon the sea.  I have another which contains all the harbours and forts of France.  As an example, I may tell you that when my minister of war was reading me a report of all the coast defences, I was able to point out to him that he had omitted two guns in a battery near Ostend.  In yet another of my brain-drawers I have the regiments of France.  Is that drawer in order, Marshal Berthier?’

A clean-shaven man, who had stood biting his nails in the window, bowed at the Emperor’s question.

’I am sometimes tempted to believe, Sire, that you know the name of every man in the ranks,’ said he.

‘I think that I know most of my old Egyptian grumblers,’ said he.  ’And then, Monsieur de Laval, there is another drawer for canals, bridges, roads, manufactures, and every detail of internal administration.  The law, finance, Italy, the Colonies, Holland, all these things demand drawers of their own.  In these days, Monsieur de Laval, France asks something more of its ruler than that he should carry eight yards of ermine with dignity, or ride after a stag in the forest of Fontainebleau.’

I thought of the helpless, gentle, pompous Louis whom my father had once taken me to visit, and I understood that France, after her convulsions and her sufferings, did indeed require another and a stronger head.

‘Do you not think so, Monsieur de Laval?’ asked the Emperor.  He had halted for a moment by the fire, and was grinding his dainty gold-buckled shoe into one of the burning logs.

‘You have come to a very wise decision,’ said he when I had answered his question.  ’But you have always been of this way of thinking, have you not?  Is it not true that you once defended me when some young Englishman was drinking toasts to my downfall at an inn in this village in which you lived?’

I remembered the incident, although I could not imagine how it had reached his ears.

‘Why should you have done this?’

‘I did it on impulse, Sire.’

‘On impulse!’ he cried, in a tone of contempt.  ’I do not know what people mean when they say that they do things upon impulse.  In Charenton things are doubtless done upon impulse, but not amongst sane people.  Why should you risk your life over there in defending me when at the time you had nothing to hope for from me?’

‘It was because I felt that you stood for France, Sire.’