and absorbed in his reflections until the tramplings of a cavalcade made him start; he looked up, shook back his long black hair, as if he wished to get rid of the gloomy thoughts which were overwhelming him, and, looking at the entrance to the gorge from whence the noise came, he soon saw two riders appear, who were no doubt well known to him, for, drawing himself up to his full height, he let fall the stick he was carrying, and folding his arms he turned towards them.  On their side the new-comers had hardly seen him before they halted, and the foremost dismounted, threw his bridle to his companion, and uncovering, though fifty paces from the man in rags, advanced respectfully towards him.  The beggar allowed him to approach with an air of sombre dignity and without a single movement; then, when he was quite near—­

“Well, marshal, have, you news for me?” said the beggar.

“Yes, sire,” said the other sadly.

“And what are they?”

“Such that I could wish it were anyone but myself to announce them to your Majesty——­”

“So the Emperor refuses my services!  He forgets the victories of Aboukir, Eylau, and Moscow?”

“No, sire; but he remembers the treaty of Naples, the taking of Reggio, and the declaration of war of the viceroy of Italy.”

The beggar struck his forehead.

“Yes, yes!  I daresay he thinks I deserve his reproaches, and yet it seems to me that he ought to remember that there are two men in me—­the soldier whom he made his brother, and the brother whom he made a king....  Yes, as brother I have treated him ill—­very ill, but as king, upon my soul, I could not have acted differently....  I had to choose between my sword and my crown, and between a regiment and a people.  Listen, Brune:  you do not know how it all happened.  There was an English fleet, the guns of which were growling in the port, there was a Neapolitan population howling in the streets.  If I had been alone, I would have passed through the fleet with one boat, through the crowd with my sword alone, but I had a wife and children.  Yet I hesitated; the idea of being called traitor and deserter caused me to shed more tears than the loss of my throne, or perhaps the death of those I love best, will ever wring from me....  And so he will have nothing more to do with me?  He refuses me as general, captain, private?  Then what is left for me to do?”

“Sire, your Majesty must leave France immediately.”

“And if I don’t obey?”

“My orders are to arrest you and deliver you up to a court-martial!”

“Old comrade, you will not do that?”

“I shall do it, praying God to strike me dead in the moment I lay hands on you!”