duels! always duels!” cried the Emperor.  “I will not allow it.  I will punish it!  You know how I abhor them!”—­“Sire, have me tried if you will, but hear me.”—­“What can you have to say to me, you crater of Vesuvius?  I have already pardoned your affair with Saint Simon; I will not do the like again.  Moreover, I cannot, at the very beginning of the campaign, when all should be thoroughly united!  It produces a most unfortunate effect!” Here the Emperor kept silence a moment; then he resumed, although in a somewhat sharper tone:  “Yes! you have a head of Vesuvius.  See what a fine condition of affairs I arrive and find blood in my palace!” After another pause, and in a somewhat calmer tone:  “See what you have done!  Joseph needs good officers; and here you have deprived him of two by a single blow,—­Franceschi, whom you have killed, and yourself, who can no longer remain in his service.”  Here the Emperor was silent for some moments, and then added:  “Now retire, leave!  Give yourself up as a prisoner at the citadel of Turin.  There await my orders, or rather place yourself in Murat’s hands; he will know what to do with you; he also has Vesuvius in his head, and he will give you a warm welcome.  Now take yourself off at once.”

Colonel Filangieri needed no urging, I think, to hasten the execution of the Emperor’s orders.  I do not know the conclusion of thus adventure; but I do know that the affair affected his Majesty deeply, for that evening when I was undressing him he repeated several times, “Duels!  What a disgraceful thing!  It is the kind of courage cannibals have!” If, moreover; the Emperor’s anger was softened on this occasion, it was on account of his affection for young Filangieri; at first on account of his father, whom the Emperor highly esteemed, and also, because the young man having been educated at his expense, at the French Prytanee, he regarded him as one of his children by adoption, especially since he knew that M. Filangieri, godson of the queen of Naples, had refused a regiment, which the latter had offered him while he was still only a simple lieutenant in the Consular Guard, and further, because he had not consented to become a Neapolitan again until a French prince had been called to the throne of Naples.

What remains to be said on the subject of duels under the Empire, and the Emperor’s conduct regarding them which came to my knowledge, somewhat resembles the little piece which is played on the theater after a tragedy.  I will now relate how it happened that the Emperor himself played the role of peacemaker between two sub-officers who were enamored of the same beauty.

When the French army occupied Vienna, some time after the battle of Austerlitz, two sub-officers belonging to the forty-sixth and fiftieth regiments of the line, having had a dispute, determined to fight a duel, and chose for the place of combat a spot situated at the extremity of a plain which adjoined the palace of Schoenbrunn, the Emperor’s place of residence.  Our two champions had already unsheathed and exchanged blows with their short swords, which happily each had warded off, when the Emperor happened to pass near them, accompanied by several generals.  Their stupefaction at the sight of the Emperor may be imagined.  Their arms fell, so to speak; from their hands.