‘There, there!’ said he.  ’Forget anything which I may have said.  I would have done better to trust you.  You may go.’

I turned to the door, and my hand was upon the handle, when the Emperor called upon me to stop.

‘You will see,’ said he, turning to the Duke of Tarentum, ’that Brigadier Gerard has the special medal of honour, for I believe that if he has the thickest head he has also the stoutest heart in my army.’

8.  HOW THE BRIGADIER WAS TEMPTED BY THE DEVIL

The spring is at hand, my friends.  I can see the little green spear-heads breaking out once more upon the chestnut trees, and the cafe tables have all been moved into the sunshine.  It is more pleasant to sit there, and yet I do not wish to tell my little stories to the whole town.  You have heard my doings as a lieutenant, as a squadron officer, as a colonel, as the chief of a brigade.  But now I suddenly become something higher and more important.  I become history.

If you have read of those closing years of the life of the Emperor which were spent in the Island of St Helena, you will remember that, again and again, he implored permission to send out one single letter which should be unopened by those who held him.  Many times he made this request, and even went so far as to promise that he would provide for his own wants and cease to be an expense to the British Government if it were granted to him.  But his guardians knew that he was a terrible man, this pale, fat gentleman in the straw hat, and they dared not grant him what he asked.  Many have wondered who it was to whom he could have had anything so secret to say.  Some have supposed that it was to his wife, and some that it was to his father-in-law; some that it was to the Emperor Alexander, and some to Marshal Soult.  What will you think of me, my friends, when I tell you it was to me—­to me, the Brigadier Gerard—­that the Emperor wished to write?  Yes, humble as you see me, with only my 100 francs a month of half-pay between me and hunger, it is none the less true that I was always in the Emperor’s mind, and that he would have given his left hand for five minutes’ talk with me.  I will tell you tonight how this came about.

It was after the Battle of Fere-Champenoise where the conscripts in their blouses and their sabots made such a fine stand, that we, the more long-headed of us, began to understand that it was all over with us.  Our reserve ammunition had been taken in the battle, and we were left with silent guns and empty caissons.  Our cavalry, too, was in a deplorable condition, and my own brigade had been destroyed in the charge at Craonne.  Then came the news that the enemy had taken Paris, that the citizens had mounted the white cockade; and finally, most terrible of all, that Marmont and his corps had gone over to the Bourbons.  We looked at each other and asked how many more of our generals were going to turn against us.  Already there were Jourdan, Marmont, Murat, Bernadotte, and Jomini—­though nobody minded much about Jomini, for his pen was always sharper than his sword.  We had been ready to fight Europe, but it looked now as though we were to fight Europe and half of France as well.