"Lazarre, there were ladies on the ship who cursed and swore, and men who were drunk the greater part of the voyage. I was brought up in the old-fashioned way by the Saint-Michels, so I know nothing of present customs. But it seems to me our times are rude and wicked. And you, just awake to the world, have yet the innocence of that little boy who sank into the strange and long stupor. If you changed I think I could not bear it!" "I will not change.”

A stir which must have been widening through the house as a ripple widens on a lake, struck us, and turned our faces with all others to a man who stood in front of the chimney. He was not large in person, but as an individual his presence was massive-was penetrating. I could have topped him by head and shoulders; yet without mastery. He took snuff as he slightly bowed in every direction, shut the lid with a snap, and fidgeted as if impatient to be gone. He had a mouth of wonderful beauty and expression, and his eyes were more alive than the eyes of any other man in the assembly. I felt his gigantic force as his head dipped forward and he glanced about under his brows.

"There is the emperor," De Chaumont told Eagle; and I thought he made indecent haste to return and hale her away before Napoleon.

The greatest soldier in Europe passed from one person to another with the air of doing his duty and getting rid of it. Presently he raised his voice,

speaking to Madame de Ferrier so that all in the room might hear.

"Madame, I am pleased to see that you wear leno. I do not like those English muslins, sold at the price of their weight in gold, and which do not look half as well as beautiful white leno. Wear leno, cambric, or silk, ladies, and then my manufactures will flourish."

I wondered if he would remember the face of the man pushed against his wheel and called an assassin, when the Marquis du Plessy named me to him as the citizen Lazarre.

"You are a lucky man, Citizen Lazarre, to gain the marquis for your friend. I have been trying a number of years to make him mine."

"All Frenchmen are the friends of Napoleon," the marquis said to me.

I spoke directly to the sovereign, thereby violating etiquette, my friend told me afterwards, laughing; and Bonaparte was a stickler for precedent.

"But all Frenchmen," I could not help reminding the man in power, "are not faithful friends."

He gave me a sharp look as he passed on, and repeated what I afterward learned was one of his favorite maxims:

"A faithful friend is the true image."

"M

VIII

UST you go to Mittau?" the Marquis du Plessy said when I told him what

I intended to do. "It is a long, expensive post journey; and part of the way you may not be able to post. Riga, on the gulf beyond Mittau, is a fine old town of pointed gables and high stone houses. But when I was in Mittau I found it a mere winter camp of Russian nobles. The houses are low, one-story structures. There is but one castle, and in that his Royal Highness the Count of Provence holds mimic court."

We were riding to Versailles, and our horses almost touched sides as my friend put his hand on my shoulder.

"Don't go, Lazarre. You will not be welcome there.""

"I must go, whether I am welcome or not.” "But I may not last until you come back." "You will last two months. Can't I post to Mittau and back in two months?"

"God knows."

I looked at him drooping forward in the saddle, and said:

"If you need me I will stay, and think no more about seeing those of my own blood."

"I do need you; but you shall not stay. You

shall go to Mittau in my own post-carriage. It will bring you back sooner."

But his post-carriage I could not accept. The venture to Mittau, its wear and tear and waste, were my own; and I promised to return with all speed. I could have undertaken the road afoot, driven by the necessity I felt.

"The Duchess of Angoulême is a good girl,” said the marquis, following the line of my thoughts. "She has devoted herself to her uncle and her husband. When the late czar withdrew his pension, and turned the whole mimic court out of Mittau, she went with her uncle, and even waded the snow with him when they fell into straits. Diamonds given to her by her grandmother, the Empress Maria Theresa, she sold for his support. But the new czar reinstated them; and though they live less pretentiously at Mittau in these days, they still have their priest and almoner, the Duke of Guiche, and other courtiers hanging upon them. My boy, can you make a court bow and walk backwards? You must practice before going into Russia."

"Wouldn't it be better," I said, "for those who know how, to practice the accomplishment before me?"

"Imagine the Count of Provence stepping down from playing royalty to do that!" my friend laughed.

"I don't know why he shouldn't, since he knows I am alive. He has sent money every year for my support."

"An established custom, Lazarre, gains strength every day it is continued. You see how hard it is to overturn an existing system, because men have to undo the work they have been doing perhaps for a thousand years. Time gives enormous stability. Monsieur the Count of Provence has been practicing royalty since word went out that his nephew had died in the Temple. It will be no easy matter to convince him you are fit to play king in his stead."

This did not disturb me, however. I thought more of my sister. And I thought of vast stretches across the center of Europe. The Indian stirred in me, as it always did stir, when the woman I wanted was withdrawn from me.

I could not tell my friend, or any man, about Madame de Ferrier. This story of my life is not to be printed until I am gone from the world. Otherwise the things set down so freely would remain buried in myself.

Some beggars started from hovels, running like dogs, holding diseased and crooked-eyed children up for alms, and pleading for God's sake that we would have pity on them. When they disappeared with their coin I asked the marquis if there had always been wretchedness in France.

"There is always wretchedness everywhere," he answered. "Napoleon can turn the world upside down, but he cannot cure the disease of hereditary poverty. I never rode to Versailles without encountering these people."