‘So be it,’ said I at last; ‘give me the dragoons and let me go.’

They were brought out with their horses and weapons, and the rope was taken from the Marshal’s neck.

‘Good-bye, my dear Colonel,’ said he.  ’I am afraid that you will have rather a lame account to give of your mission, when you find your way back to Massena, though, from all I hear, he will probably be too busy to think of you.  I am free to confess that you have extricated yourself from your difficulties with greater ability than I had given you credit for.  I presume that there is nothing which I can do for you before you go?’

‘There is one thing.’

‘And that is?’

‘To give fitting burial to this young officer and his men.’

‘I pledge my word to it.’

‘And there is one other.’

‘Name it.’

’To give me five minutes in the open with a sword in your hand and a horse between your legs.’

‘Tut, tut!’ said he.  ’I should either have to cut short your promising career, or else to bid adieu to my own bonny bride.  It is unreasonable to ask such a request of a man in the first joys of matrimony.’

I gathered my horsemen together and wheeled them into column.

‘Au revoir,’ I cried, shaking my sword at him.  ’The next time you may not escape so easily.’

‘Au revoir,’ he answered.  ’When you are weary of the Emperor, you will always find a commission waiting for you in the service of the Marshal Millefleurs.’

6.  HOW THE BRIGADIER PLAYED FOR A KINGDOM

It has sometimes struck me that some of you, when you have heard me tell these little adventures of mine, may have gone away with the impression that I was conceited.  There could not be a greater mistake than this, for I have always observed that really fine soldiers are free from this failing.  It is true that I have had to depict myself sometimes as brave, sometimes as full of resource, always as interesting; but, then, it really was so, and I had to take the facts as I found them.  It would be an unworthy affectation if I were to pretend that my career has been anything but a fine one.  The incident which I will tell you tonight, however, is one which you will understand that only a modest man would describe.  After all, when one has attained such a position as mine, one can afford to speak of what an ordinary man might be tempted to conceal.

You must know, then, that after the Russian campaign the remains of our poor army were quartered along the western bank of the Elbe, where they might thaw their frozen blood and try, with the help of the good German beer, to put a little between their skin and their bones.  There were some things which we could not hope to regain, for I daresay that three large commissariat fourgons would not have sufficed to carry the fingers and the toes which the army had shed during that retreat.  Still, lean and crippled as we were, we had much to be thankful for when we