“Come, Monsieur Goguelat,” said the game-keeper, “tell us about the Emperor.”

“The evening is half over,” said the postman, “and I don’t like to shorten the victories.”

“Never mind; go on!  You’ve told them so many times we know them all by heart; but it is always a pleasure to hear them again.”

“Yes! tell us about the Emperor,” cried many voices together.

“Since you wish it,” replied Goguelat.  “But you’ll see it isn’t worth much when I have to tell it on the double-quick, charge!  I’d rather tell about a battle.  Shall I tell about Champ-Aubert, where we used up all the cartridges and spitted the enemy on our bayonets?”

“No! no! the Emperor! the Emperor!”

The veteran rose from his bale of hay and cast upon the assemblage that black look laden with miseries, emergencies, and sufferings, which distinguishes the faces of old soldiers.  He seized his jacket by the two front flaps, raised them as if about to pack the knapsack which formerly held his clothes, his shoes, and all his fortune; then he threw the weight of his body on his left leg, advanced the right, and yielded with a good grace to the demands of the company.  After pushing his gray hair to one side to show his forehead, he raised his head towards heaven that he might, as it were, put himself on the level of the gigantic history he was about to relate.

“You see, my friends, Napoleon was born in Corsica, a French island, warmed by the sun of Italy, where it is like a furnace, and where the people kill each other, from father to son, all about nothing:  that’s a way they have.  To begin with the marvel of the thing,—­his mother, who was the handsomest woman of her time, and a knowing one, bethought herself of dedicating him to God, so that he might escape the dangers of his childhood and future life; for she had dreamed that the world was set on fire the day he was born.  And indeed it was a prophecy!  So she asked God to protect him, on condition that Napoleon should restore His holy religion, which was then cast to the ground.  Well, that was agreed upon, and we shall see what came of it.

“Follow me closely, and tell me if what you hear is in the nature of man.

“Sure and certain it is that none but a man who conceived the idea of making a compact with God could have passed unhurt through the enemy’s lines, through cannon-balls, and discharges of grape-shot that swept the rest of us off like flies, and always respected his head.  I had a proof of that—­I myself—­at Eylau.  I see him now, as he rode up a height, took his field glass, looked at the battle, and said, ‘A11 goes well.’  One of those plumed busy-bodies, who plagued him considerably and followed him everywhere, even to his meals, so they said, thought to play the wag, and took the Emperor’s place as he rode away.  Ho! in a twinkling, head and plume were off!  You must understand that Napoleon had promised to keep the secret of his compact all