had contracted at Chene and which compelled him to make those frequent halts at houses along the road.  “Well, then, the attendant opened the camp stool and placed it in the shade of a clump of trees at the edge of a field of wheat, and the Emperor sat down on it.  Sitting there in a limp, dejected attitude, perfectly still, he looked for all the world like a small shopkeeper taking a sun bath for his rheumatism.  His dull eyes wandered over the wide horizon, the Meuse coursing through the valley at his feet, before him the range of wooded heights whose summits recede and are lost in the distance, on the left the waving tree-tops of Dieulet forest, on the right the verdure-clad eminence of Sommanthe.  He was surrounded by his military family, aides and officers of rank, and a colonel of dragoons, who had already applied to me for information about the country, had just motioned me not to go away, when all at once—­” Delaherche rose from his chair, for he had reached the point where the dramatic interest of his story culminated and it became necessary to re-enforce words by gestures.  “All at once there is a succession of sharp reports and right in front of us, over the wood of Dieulet, shells are seen circling through the air.  It produced on me no more effect than a display of fireworks in broad daylight, sir, upon my word it didn’t!  The people about the Emperor, of course, showed a good deal of agitation and uneasiness.  The colonel of dragoons comes running up again to ask if I can give them an idea whence the firing proceeds.  I answer him off-hand:  ’It is at Beaumont; there is not the slightest doubt about it.’  He returns to the Emperor, on whose knees an aide-de-camp was unfolding a map.  The Emperor was evidently of opinion that the fighting was not at Beaumont, for he sent the colonel back to me a third time.  But I couldn’t well do otherwise than stick to what I had said before, could I, now? the more that the shells kept flying through the air, nearer and nearer, following the line of the Mouzon road.  And then, sir, as sure as I see you standing there, I saw the Emperor turn his pale face toward me.  Yes sir, he looked at me a moment with those dim eyes of his, that were filled with an expression of melancholy and distrust.  And then his face declined upon his map again and he made no further movement.”

Delaherche, although he was an ardent Bonapartist at the time of the plebiscite, had admitted after our early defeats that the government was responsible for some mistakes, but he stood up for the dynasty, compassionating and excusing Napoleon III., deceived and betrayed as he was by everyone.  It was his firm opinion that the men at whose door should be laid the responsibility for all our disasters were none other than those Republican deputies of the opposition who had stood in the way of voting the necessary men and money.

“And did the Emperor return to the farmhouse?” asked Captain Beaudoin.