“That was what the Emperor said, but you would never imagine how kindly he said it; and he had so many irons in the fire just then, for he was riding about surveying the position of the field.  I am telling you this story to show you what a memory he had, and so that you may know that he knew my face.  I took the oath in 1815.  But for that mistake, perhaps I might have been a colonel to-day; I never meant to betray the Bourbons, France must be defended, and that was all I thought about.  I was a Major in the Grenadiers of the Imperial Guard; and although my wound still gave me trouble, I swung a sabre in the battle of Waterloo.  When it was all over, and Napoleon returned to Paris, I went too; then when he reached Rochefort, I followed him against his orders; it was some sort of comfort to watch over him and to see that no mishap befell him on the way.  So when he was walking along the beach he turned and saw me on duty ten paces from him.

“‘Well, Genestas,’ he said, as he came towards me, ’so we are not yet dead, either of us?’

“It cut me to the heart to hear him say that.  If you had heard him, you would have shuddered from head to foot, as I did.  He pointed to the villainous English vessel that was keeping the entrance to the Harbor.  ‘When I see that,’ he said, ’and think of my Guard, I wish that I had perished in that torrent of blood.’

“Yes,” said Genestas, looking at the doctor and at La Fosseuse, “those were his very words.

“’The generals who counseled you not to charge with the Guard, and who hurried you into your traveling carriage, were not true friends of yours,’ I said.

“‘Come with me,’ he cried eagerly, ‘the game is not ended yet.’

“’I would gladly go with your Majesty, but I am not free; I have a motherless child on my hands just now.’

“And so it happened that Adrien over there prevented me from going to St. Helena.

“‘Stay,’ he said, ’I have never given you anything.  You are not one of those who fill one hand and then hold out the other.  Here is the snuff-box that I have used though this last campaign.  And stay on in France; after all, brave men are wanted there!  Remain in the service, and keep me in remembrance.  Of all my army in Egypt, you are the last that I have seen still on his legs in France.’  And he gave me a little snuff-box.

“‘Have “Honneur et patrie” engraved on it,’ he said; ’the history of our last two campaigns is summed up in those three words.’

“Then those who were going out with him came up, and I spent the rest of the morning with them.  The Emperor walked to and fro along the beach; there was not a sign of agitation about him, though he frowned from time to time.  At noon, it was considered hopeless for him to attempt to escape by sea.  The English had found out that he was at Rochefort; he must either give himself up to them, or cross the breadth of France again.  We were wretchedly anxious;