Fougas threw the mirror to the ground, and cried out:—­

“What is that you are telling me?  I hear the little song of Queen Hortense!”

M. Renault patiently explained to him, while picking up the pieces of the mirror, that the pretty little song of Queen Hortense had become a national air, and even an official one, since the regimental bands had substituted that gentle melody for the fierce ‘Marseillaise’; and that our soldiers, strange to say, had not fought any the worse for it.  But the colonel had already opened the window, and was crying out to the Savoyard with the organ:—­

“Eh!  Friend!  A napoleon for you if you will tell me in what year I am drawing the breath of life!”

The artist began dancing as lightly as possible, playing on his musical instrument.

“Advance at the order!” cried the colonel, “and keep that devilish machine still!”

“A little penny, my good monsieur!”

“It is not a penny that I’ll give you, but a napoleon, if you’ll tell what year it is.”

“Oh, but that’s funny!  Hi—­hi—­hi!”

“And if you don’t tell me quicker than this amounts to, I’ll cut your ears off!”

The Savoyard ran away, but he came back pretty soon, having meditated, during his flight, on the maxim “Nothing risk, nothing gain.”

“Monsieur,” said he, in a wheedling voice, “this is the year eighteen hundred and fifty-nine.”

“Good!” cried Fougas.  He felt in his pockets for money, and found nothing there.  Leon saw his predicament, and flung twenty francs into the court.  Before shutting the window, he pointed out, to the right, the facade of a pretty little new building, where the colonel could distinctly read:—­

AUDRET ARCHITECTE
MDCCCLIX

A perfectly satisfactory piece of evidence, and one which did not cost twenty francs.

Fougas, a little confused, pressed Leon’s hand and said to him:—­

“My friend, I do not forget that Confidence is the first duty from Gratitude toward Beneficence.  But tell me of our country!  I tread the sacred soil where I received my being, and I am ignorant of the career of my native land.  France is still the queen of the world, is she not?”

“Certainly,” said Leon.

“How is the Emperor?”

“Well.”

“And the Empress?”

“Very well.”

“And the King of Rome?”

“The Prince Imperial?  He is a very fine child.”

“How?  A fine child!  And you have the face to say that this is 1859!”

M. Nibor took up the conversation, and explained in a few words that the reigning sovereign of France was not Napoleon I., but Napoleon III.

“But then,” cried Fougas, “my Emperor is dead!”

“Yes.”

“Impossible!  Tell me anything you will but that!  My Emperor is immortal.”

M. Nibor and the Renaults, who were not quite professional historians, were obliged to give him a summary of the history of our century.  Some one went after a big book, written by M. de Norvins and illustrated with fine engravings by Raffet.  He only believed in the presence of Truth when he could touch her with his hand, and still cried out almost every moment, “That’s impossible!  This is not history that you are reading to me:  it is a romance written to make soldiers weep!”