In two or three years, and without taxing you people at all, Napoleon filled his vaults with gold; created bridges, palaces, roads, schools, festivals, laws, harbors, ships; and spent millions and millions of money—­so much, in fact, that if he’d taken the notion, they say, he might have paved all France with five-franc pieces.

Finally, when he was comfortably seated on his throne, he was so thoroughly the master of everything that Europe waited for his permission before it even dared to sneeze.  Then, as he had four brothers and three sisters, he said to us in familiar talk, as if in the order of the day:  “Boys!  Is it right that the relatives of your Emperor should have to beg their bread?  No!  I want them to shine, just as I do.  A kingdom must be conquered, therefore, for every one of them; so that France may be master of all; so that the soldiers of the Guard may make the world tremble; so that France may spit wherever she likes; and so that all nations may say to her,—­as it is written on my coins,—­’God protects you.’”

“All right!” says the army.  “We’ll fish up kingdoms for you with the bayonet.”

We couldn’t back out, you know; and if he had taken it into his head to conquer the moon, we should have had to get ready, pack our knapsacks, and climb up.  Fortunately, he didn’t have any such intention.

The kings, who were very comfortable on their thrones, naturally didn’t want to get off to make room for his relatives; so they had to be dragged off by the ears.  Forward!  We marched and marched, and everything began to shake again.  Ah, how he did wear out men and shoes in those days!  He struck such tremendous blows with us that if we had been other than Frenchmen we should all have been used up.  But Frenchmen are born philosophers, and they know that a little sooner or a little later they must die.  So we used to die without a word, because we had the pleasure of seeing the Emperor do this with the geographies. [Here the old soldier nimbly drew a circle with his foot on the floor of the barn.]

“There!” he would say, “that shall be a kingdom!” And it was a kingdom.  Ah, that was a great time!  Colonels became generals while you were looking at them; generals became marshals, and marshals became kings.  There’s one of those kings still left, to remind Europe of that time; but he is a Gascon, and has betrayed France in order to keep his crown.  He doesn’t blush for the shame of it, either; because crowns, you understand, are made of gold!  Finally, even sappers, if they knew how to read, became nobles all the same.  I myself have seen in Paris eleven kings and a crowd of princes, surrounding Napoleon like rays of the sun.  Every soldier had a chance to see how a throne fitted him, if he was worthy of it, and when a corporal of the Guard passed by he was an object of curiosity; because all had a share in the glory of the victories, which were perfectly well known to everybody through the bulletins.