Sum total:  Europe is cowed; England knuckles down; and there is universal peace, with all the kings and people pretending to embrace one another.

It was then that Napoleon established the Legion of Honor; and a fine thing it was, too.  In a speech that he made before the whole army at Boulogne he said:  “In France everybody is brave; so the civilian who does a noble deed shall be the brother of the soldier, and they shall stand together under the flag of honor.”  Then we who had been down in Egypt came home and found everything changed.  When Napoleon left us he was only a general; but in no time at all he had become Emperor.  France had given herself to him as a pretty girl gives herself to a lancer.

Well, when everything had been settled to everybody’s satisfaction, there was a religious ceremony such as had never before been seen under the canopy of heaven.  The Pope and all his cardinals, in their robes of scarlet and gold, came across the Alps to anoint him with holy oil, and he was crowned Emperor, in the presence of the army and the people, with great applause and clapping of hands.

But there is one thing that it would not be fair not to tell you; and that is about the red man.  While Napoleon was still in Egypt, in a desert not far from Syria, the Red Man appeared to him on the mountain of Moses (Sinai), and said to him, “It’s all right!” Then again, at Marengo, on the evening of the victory, the same Red Man appeared to him a second time, and said:  “You shall see the world at your feet:  you shall be Emperor of France; King of Italy; master of Holland; sovereign of Spain, Portugal, and the Illyrian provinces; protector of Germany; savior of Poland; first eagle of the Legion of Honor—­everything!”

This Red Man, you see, was his own idea; and was a sort of messenger whom he used, many people said, as a means of communication with his star.  I’ve never believed that, myself, but that there was a Red Man is a real fact.  Napoleon himself spoke of him, and said that he lived up under the roof in the palace of the Tuileries, and that he often used to make his appearance in times of trouble.  On the evening of his coronation Napoleon saw him for the third time, and they consulted together about a lot of things.

After that the Emperor went to Milan, where he was crowned King of Italy; and then began a regular triumph for us soldiers.  Every man who knew how to read and write became an officer; it rained dukedoms; pensions were distributed with both hands; there were fortunes for the general staff which didn’t cost France a penny; and even common soldiers received annuities with their crosses of the Legion of Honor—­I get mine to this day.  In short, the armies of France were taken care of in a way that had never before been seen.

But the Emperor, who knew that he was the emperor not only of the soldiers but of all, remembered the bourgeois, and built wonderful monuments for them, to suit their own taste, in places that had been as bare before as the palm of your hand.  Suppose you were coming from Spain, for example, and going through France to Berlin.  You would pass under sculptured triumphal arches on which you’d see the common soldiers carved just as beautifully as the generals.