My faith, I was right glad to get out of the room.  If I have a good horse under me, and a sword clanking against my stirrup-iron, I know where I am.  And in all that relates to green fodder or dry, barley and oats and rye, and the handling of squadrons upon the march, there is no one who can teach me very much.  But when I meet a Chamberlain and a Marshal of the Palace, and have to pick my words with an Emperor, and find that everybody hints instead of talking straight out, I feel like a troop-horse who has been put in a lady’s caleche.  It is not my trade, all this mincing and pretending.  I have learned the manners of a gentleman, but never those of a courtier.  I was right glad then to get into the fresh air again, and I ran away up to my quarters like a schoolboy who has just escaped from the seminary master.

But as I opened the door, the very first thing that my eye rested upon was a long pair of sky-blue legs with hussar boots, and a short pair of black ones with knee breeches and buckles.  They both sprang up together to greet me.

‘Well, what news?’ they cried, the two of them.

‘None,’ I answered.

‘The Emperor refused to see you?’

‘No, I have seen him.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘Monsieur de Talleyrand,’ I answered, ’I regret to say that it is quite impossible for me to tell you anything about it.  I have promised the Emperor.’

‘Pooh, pooh, my dear young man,’ said he, sidling up to me, as a cat does when it is about to rub itself against you.  ’This is all among friends, you understand, and goes no farther than these four walls.  Besides, the Emperor never meant to include me in this promise.’

‘It is but a minute’s walk to the palace, Monsieur de Talleyrand,’ I answered; ’if it would not be troubling you too much to ask you to step up to it and bring back the Emperor’s written statement that he did not mean to include you in this promise, I shall be happy to tell you every word that passed.’

He showed his teeth at me then like the old fox that he was.

‘Monsieur Gerard appears to be a little puffed up,’ said he.  ’He is too young to see things in their just proportion.  As he grows older he may understand that it is not always very discreet for a subaltern of cavalry to give such very abrupt refusals.’

I did not know what to say to this, but Lasalle came to my aid in his downright fashion.

‘The lad is quite right,’ said he.  ’If I had known that there was a promise I should not have questioned him.  You know very well, Monsieur de Talleyrand, that if he had answered you, you would have laughed in your sleeve and thought as much about him as I think of the bottle when the burgundy is gone.  As for me, I promise you that the Tenth would have had no room for him, and that we should have lost our best swordsman if I had heard him give up the Emperor’s secret.’

But the statesman became only the more bitter when he saw that I had the support of my Colonel.