II
Preparations against the arrival of the Corsican ogre were proceeding apace. Général Marchand had been overconfident throughout the day—which was the 5th of March: "The troops," he said, "were loyal to a man. They were coming in fast from Chambéry and Vienne; the garrison would and could repulse that band of pirates, and take upon itself to fulfil the promise which Ney had made to the King—namely to bring the ogre to His Majesty bound and gagged in an iron cage."
But the following day, which was the 6th, many things occurred to shake the Commandant's confidence: Napoleon's proclamation was not only posted up all over the town, but the citizens were distributing the printed leaflets among themselves: one of the officers on the staff pointed out to Général Marchand that the 4th regiment of artillery quartered in Grenoble was the one in which Bonaparte had served as a lieutenant during the Revolution—the men, it was argued, would never turn their arms against one whom they had never ceased to idolize: it would not be safe to march out into the open with men whose loyalty was so very doubtful.
There was a rumour current in the town that when the men of the 5th regiment of engineers and the 4th of artillery were told that Napoleon had only eleven hundred men with him, they all murmured with one accord: "And what about us?"
Therefore Général Marchand, taking all these facts into consideration, made up his mind to await the ogre inside the walls of Grenoble. Here at any rate defections and desertions would be less likely to occur than in the field. He set to work to organise the city into a state of defence; forty-seven guns were put in position upon the ramparts which dominate the road to the south, and he sent a company of engineers and a battalion of infantry to blow up the bridge of Ponthaut at La Mure.
The royalists in the city, who were beginning to feel very anxious, had assembled in force to cheer these troops as they marched out of the city. But the attitude of the sapeurs created a very unpleasant impression: they marched out in disorder, some of them tore the white cockade from their shakos, and one or two cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" were distinctly heard in their ranks.
At La Mure, M. le Maire argued very strongly against the destruction of the bridge of Ponthaut: "It would be absurd," he said, "to blow up a valuable bridge, since not one kilometre away there was an excellent ford across which Napoleon could march his troops with perfect ease." The sapeurs murmured an assent, and their officer, Colonel Delessart, feeling the temper of his men, did not dare insist.
He quartered them at La Mure to await the arrival of the infantry, and further orders from Général Marchand. When the 5th regiment of infantry was reported to have reached Laffray, Delessart had the sapeurs out and marched out to meet them, although it was then close upon midnight.
While Delessart and his troops encamped at Laffray, Cambronne—who was in command of Napoleon's vanguard—himself occupied La Mure. This was on the 7th. The Mayor—who had so strongly protested against the destruction of the bridge of Ponthaut—gathered the population around him, and in a body men, women and children marched out of the borough along the Corps-Sisteron road in order to give "the Emperor" a rousing welcome.
It was still early morning. Napoleon at the head of his Old Guard entered La Mure; a veritable ovation greeted him, everyone pressed round him to see him or touch his horse, his coat, his stirrups; he spoke to the people and held the Mayor and municipal officials in long conversation.
Just as practically everywhere else on his route, he had won over every heart; but his small column which had been eleven hundred strong when he landed at Jouan, was still only eleven hundred strong: he had only rallied four recruits to his standard. True, he had met with no opposition, true that the peasantry of the Dauphiné had loudly acclaimed him, had listened to his harangues and presented him with flowers, but he had not had a single encounter with any garrison on his way, nor could he boast of any defections in his favour; now he was nearing Grenoble—Grenoble, which was strongly fortified and well garrisoned—and Grenoble would be the winning or losing cast of this great gamble for the sovereignty of France.
It was close on eleven when the great adventurer set out upon this momentous stage of his journey: the Polish Lancers leading, then the chasseurs of his Old Guard with their time-worn grey coats and heavy bear-skins; some of them were on foot, others packed closely together in wagons and carts which the enthusiastic agriculturists of La Mure had placed at the disposal of "the Emperor."
Napoleon himself followed in his coach, his horse being led along. Amidst thundering cries of "God speed" the small column started on its way.
As for the rest, 'tis in the domain of history; every phase of it has been put on record:—Delessart—worried in his mind that he had not been able to obey Général Marchand's orders and destroy the bridge of Ponthaut—his desire to communicate once more with the General; his decision to await further orders and in the meanwhile to occupy the narrow defile of Laffray as being an advantageous position wherein to oppose the advance of the ogre: all this on the one side.
On the other, the advance of the Polish Lancers, of the carts and wagons wherein are crowded the soldiers of the Old Guard, and Napoleon himself, the great gambler, sitting in his coach gazing out through the open windows at the fair land of France, the peaceful valley on his left, the chain of ice-covered lakes and the turbulent Drac; on his right beyond the hills frowning Taillefer, snow-capped and pine-clad, and far ahead Grenoble still hidden from his view as the future too was still hidden—the mysterious gate beyond which lay glory and an Empire or the ignominy of irretrievable failure.
History has made a record of it all, and it is not the purpose of this true chronicle to do more than recall with utmost brevity the chief incident of that memorable encounter, the Polish Lancers galloping back with the report that the narrow pass was held against them in strong force: the Old Guard climbing helter-skelter out of carts and wagons, examining their arms, making ready: Napoleon stepping quickly out of his coach and mounting his charger.
On the other side Delessart holding hurried consultation with the Vicomte de St. Genis whom Général Marchand has despatched to him with orders to shoot the brigand and his horde as he would a pack of wolves.
Napoleon is easily recognisable in the distance, with his grey overcoat, his white horse and his bicorne hat; presently he dismounts and walks up and down across the narrow road, evidently in a state of great mental agitation.
Delessart's men are sullen and silent; a crowd of men and women from Grenoble have followed them up thus far; they work their way in and out among the infantrymen: they have printed leaflets in their hands which they cram one by one into the hands or pockets of the soldiers—copies of Napoleon's proclamation.
Now an officer of the Old Guard is seen to ride up the pass. Delessart recognises him. They were brothers in arms two years ago and served together under the greatest military genius the world has ever known. Napoleon has sent the man on as an emissary, but Delessart will not allow him to speak.
"I mean to do my duty," he declares.
But in his voice too there has already crept that note of sullenness which characterised the sapeurs from the first.
Then Captain Raoul, own aide-de-camp to Napoleon, comes up at full gallop: nor does he draw rein till he is up with the entire front of Delessart's battalion.
"Your Emperor is coming," he shouts to the soldiers, "if you fire, the first shot will reach him: and France will make you answerable for this outrage!"
While he shouts and harangues the men are still sullen and silent. And in the distance the lances of the Polish cavalry gleam in the sun, and the shaggy bear-skins of the Old Guard are seen to move forward up the pass. Delessart casts a rapid piercing glance over his men. Sullenness had given place to obvious terror.
"Right about turn! . . . Quick! . . . March!" he commands.
Resistance obviously would be useless with these men, who are on the verge of laying down their arms. He forces on a quick march, but the Polish Lancers are already gaining ground: the sound of their horses' hoofs stamping the frozen ground, the snorting, the clanging of arms is distinctly heard. Delessart now has no option. He must make his men turn once more and face the ogre and his battalion before they are attacked in the rear.
As soon as the order is given and the two little armies stand face to face the Polish Lancers halt and the Old Guard stand still.
And it almost seems for the moment as if Nature herself stood still and listened, and looked on. The genial midday sun is slowly melting the snow on pine trees and rocks; one by one the glistening tiny crystals blink and vanish under the warmth of the kiss; the hard, white road darkens under the thaw and slowly a thin covering of water spreads over the icy crust of the lakes.
Napoleon tells Colonel Mallet to order the men to lower their arms. Mallet protests, but Napoleon reiterates the command, more peremptorily this time, and Mallet must obey. Then at the head of his old chasseurs, thus practically disarmed, the Emperor—and he is every inch an Emperor now—walks straight up to Delessart's opposing troops.
Hot-headed St. Genis cries: "Here he is!—Fire, in Heaven's name!"
But the sapeurs—the old regiment in which Napoleon had served as a young lieutenant in those glorious olden days—are now as pale as death, their knees shake under them, their arms tremble in their hands.
At ten paces away from the foremost ranks Napoleon halts:
"Soldiers," he cries loudly. "Here I am! your Emperor, do you know me?"
Again he advances and with a calm gesture throws open his well-worn grey redingote.
"Fire!" cries St. Genis in mad exasperation.
"Fire!" commands Delessart in a voice rendered shaky with overmastering emotion.
Silence reigns supreme. Napoleon still advances, step by step, his redingote thrown open, his broad chest challenging the first bullet which would dare to end the bold, adventurous, daring life.
"Is there one of you soldiers here who wants to shoot his Emperor? If there is, here I am! Fire!"
Which of these soldiers who have served under him at Jena and Austerlitz could resist such a call. His voice has lost nothing yet of its charm, his personality nothing of its magic. Ambitious, ruthless, selfish he may be, but to the army, a friend, a comrade as well as a god.
Suddenly the silence is broken. Shouts of "Vive l'Empereur!" rend the air, they echo down the narrow valley, re-echo from hill to hill and reverberate upon the pine-clad heights of Taillefer. Broken are the ranks, white cockades fly in every direction, tricolours appear in their hundreds everywhere. Shakos are waved on the points of the bayonets, and always, always that cry: "Vive l'Empereur!"
Sapeurs and infantrymen crowd around the little man in the worn grey redingote, and he with that rough familiarity which bound all soldiers' hearts to him, seizes an old sergeant by the ends of his long moustache:
"So, you old dog," he says, "you were going to shoot your Emperor, were you?"
"Not me," replies the man with a growl. "Look at our guns. Not one of them was loaded."
Delessart, in despair yet shaken to the heart, his eyes swimming in tears, offers his sword to Napoleon, whereupon the Emperor grasps his hand in friendship and comforts him with a few inspiring words.
Only St. Genis has looked on all this scene with horror and contempt. His royalist opinions are well known, his urgent appeal to Delessart a while ago to "shoot the brigand and his hordes" still rings in every soldier's ear. He is half-crazy with rage and there is quite an element of terror in the confused thoughts which crowd in upon his brain.
Already the sapeurs and infantrymen have joined the ranks of the Old Guard, and Napoleon, with that inimitable verve and inspiring eloquence of which he was pastmaster, was haranguing his troops. Just then three horsemen, dressed in the uniform of officers of the National Guard and wearing enormous tricolour cockades as large as soup-plates on their shakos, are seen to arrive at a break-neck gallop down the pass from Grenoble.
St. Genis recognised them at a glance: they were Victor de Marmont, Surgeon-Captain Emery and their friend the glovemaker, Dumoulin. The next moment these three men were at the feet of their beloved hero.
"Sire," said Dumoulin the glovemaker, "in the name of the citizens of Grenoble we hereby offer you our services and one hundred thousand francs collected in the last twenty-four hours for your use."
"I accept both," replied the Emperor, while he grasped vigorously the hands of his three most devoted friends.
St. Genis uttered a loud and comprehensive curse: then he pulled his horse abruptly round and with such a jerk that it reared and plunged madly forward ere it started galloping away with its frantic rider in the direction of Grenoble.
III
And Grenoble itself was in a turmoil.
In the barracks the cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" were incessant; Général Marchand was indefatigable in his efforts to still that cry, to rouse in the hearts of the soldiers a sense of loyalty to the King.
"Your country and your King," he shouted from barrack-room to barrack-room.
"Our country and our Emperor!" responded the soldiers with ever-growing enthusiasm.
The spirit of the army and of the people were Bonapartist to the core. They had never trusted either Marchand or préfet Fourier, who had turned their coats so readily at the Restoration: they hated the émigrés—the Comte de Cambray, the Vicomte de St. Genis, the Duc d'Embrun—with their old-fashioned ideas of the semi-divine rights of the nobility second only to the godlike ones of the King. They thought them arrogant and untamed, over-ready to grab once more all the privileges which a bloody Revolution had swept away.
To them Napoleon, despite the brilliant days of the Empire, despite his autocracy, his militarism and his arrogance, represented "the people," the advanced spirit of the Revolution; his downfall had meant a return to the old regime—the regime of feudal rights, of farmers general, of heavy taxation and dear bread.
"Vive l'Empereur!" was cried in the barracks and "Vive l'Empereur!" at the street corners.
A squadron of Hussars had marched into Grenoble from Vienne just before noon: the same squadron which a few months ago at a revue by the Comte d'Artois in the presence of the King had shouted "Vive l'Empereur!" What faith could be put in their loyalty now?
But two infantry regiments came in at the same time from Chambéry and on these Général Marchand hoped to be able to reckon. The Comte Charles de la Bédoyère was in command of the 7th regiment, and though he had served in Prussia under Napoleon he had tendered his oath loyally to Louis XVIII. at the Restoration. He was a tried and able soldier and Marchand believed in him. The General himself reviewed both infantry regiments on the Place d'Armes on their arrival, and then posted them upon the ramparts of the city, facing direct to the southeast and dominating the road to La Mure.
De la Bédoyère remained in command of the 7th.
For two hours he paced the ramparts in a state of the greatest possible agitation. The nearness of Napoleon, of the man who had been his comrade in arms first and his leader afterwards, had a terribly disturbing effect upon his spirit. From below in the city the people's mutterings, their grumbling, their sullen excitement seemed to rise upwards like an intoxicating incense. The attitude of the troops, of the gunners, as well as of the garrison and of his own regiment, worked more potently still upon the Colonel's already shaken loyalty.
Then suddenly his mind is made up. He draws his sword and shouts: "Vive l'Empereur!"
"Soldiers!" he calls. "Follow me! I will show you the way to duty! Follow me! Vive l'Empereur!"
"Vive l'Empereur!" vociferate the troops.
"After me, my men! to the Bonne Gate! After me!" cries De la Bédoyère.
And to the shouts of "Vive l'Empereur!" the 7th regiment of infantry passes through the gate and marches along the streets of the suburb on towards La Mure.
Général Marchand, hastily apprised of the wholesale defection, sends Colonel Villiers in hot haste in the wake of De la Bédoyère. Villiers comes up with the latter two kilomètres outside Grenoble. He talks, he persuades, he admonishes, he scolds, De la Bédoyère and his men are firm.
"Your country and your king!" shouts Villiers.
"Our country and our Emperor!" respond the men. And they go to join the Old Guard at Laffray while Villiers in despair rides back into Grenoble.
In the town the desertion of the 7th has had a very serious effect. The muttered cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" are open shouts now. Général Marchand is at his wits' ends. He has ordered the closing of every city gate, and still the soldiers in batches of tens and twenties at a time contrive to escape out of the town carrying their arms and in many cases baggage with them. The royalist faction—the women as well as the men—spend the whole day in and out of the barrack-rooms talking to the men, trying to infuse into them loyalty to the King, and to cheer them up by bringing them wine and provisions.
In the afternoon the Vicomte de St. Genis, sick, exhausted, his horse covered with lather, comes back with the story of the pass of Laffray, and Napoleon's triumphant march toward Grenoble. Marchand seriously contemplates evacuating the city in order to save the garrison and his stores.
Préfet Fourier congratulates himself on his foresight and on that he has transferred the twenty-five million francs from the cellars of the Hôtel de Ville into the safe keeping of M. le Comte de Cambray. He and Général Marchand both hope and think that "the brigand and his horde" cannot possibly be at the gates of Grenoble before the morrow, and that Mme. la Duchesse d'Agen would be well on her way to Paris with the money by that time.
Marchand in the meanwhile has made up his mind to retire from the city with his troops. It is only a strategical measure, he argues, to save bloodshed and to save his stores, pending the arrival of the Comte d'Artois at Lyons, with the army corps. He gives the order for the general retreat to commence at two o'clock in the morning.
Satisfied that he has done the right thing, he finally goes back to his quarters in the Hotel du Dauphiné close to the ramparts. The Comte de Cambray is his guest at dinner, and toward seven o'clock the two men at last sit down to a hurried meal, both their minds filled with apprehension and not a little fear as to what the next few days will bring.
"It is, of course, only a question of time," says the Comte de Cambray airily. "Monseigneur le Comte d'Artois will be at Lyons directly with forty thousand men, and he will easily crush that marauding band of pirates. But this time the Corsican after his defeat must be put more effectually out of harm's way. I, personally, was never much in favour of Elba."
"The English have some islands out in the Atlantic or the Pacific," responds Général Marchand with firm decision. "It would be safest to shoot the brigand, but failing that, let the English send him to one of those islands, and undertake to guard him well."
"Let us drink to that proposition, my dear Marchand," concludes M. le Comte with a smile.
Hardly had the two men concluded this toast, when a fearful din is heard, "regular howls" proceeding from the suburb of Bonne. The windows of the hotel give on the ramparts and the house itself dominates the Bonne Gate and the military ground beyond it. Hastily Marchand jumps up from the table and throws open the window. He and the Comte step out upon the balcony.
The din has become deafening: with a hand that slightly trembles now Général Marchand points to the extensive grounds that lie beyond the city gate, and M. le Comte quickly smothers an exclamation of terror.
A huge crowd of peasants armed with scythes and carrying torches which flicker in the frosty air have invaded the slopes and flats of the military zone. They are yelling "Vive l'Empereur!" at the top of their voices, and from walls and bastions reverberates the answering cry "Vive l'Empereur!" vociferated by infantrymen and gunners and sapeurs, and echoed and re-echoed with passionate enthusiasm by the people of Grenoble assembled in their thousands in the narrow streets which abut upon the ramparts.
And in the midst of the peasantry, surrounded by them as by a cordon, Napoleon and his small army, just reinforced by the 7th regiment of infantry, have halted—expectant.
Napoleon's aide-de-camp, Capitaine Raoul, accompanied by half a dozen lancers, comes up to the palisade which bars the immediate approach to the city gates.
"Open!" he cries loudly, so loudly that his young, firm voice rises above the tumult around. "Open! in the name of the Emperor!"
Marchand sees it all, he hears the commanding summons, hears the thunderous and enthusiastic cheers which greet Captain Raoul's call to surrender. He and the Comte de Cambray are still standing upon the balcony of the hotel that faces the gate of Bonne and dominates from its high ground the ramparts opposite. White-cheeked and silent the two men have gazed before them and have understood. To attempt to stem this tide of popular enthusiasm would inevitably be fatal. The troops inside Grenoble were as ready to cross over to "the brigand's" standard as was Colonel de la Bédoyère's regiment of infantry.
The ramparts and the surrounding military zone were lit up by hundreds of torches; by their flickering light the two men on the balcony could see the faces of the people, and those of the soldiers who were even now being ordered to fire upon Raoul and the Lancers.
Colonel Roussille, who is in command of the troops at the gate, sends a hasty messenger to Général Marchand: "The brigand demands that we open the gate!" reports the messenger breathlessly.
"Tell the Colonel to give the order to fire," is Marchand's peremptory response.
"Are you coming with me, M. le Comte?" he asks hurriedly. But he does not wait for a reply. Wrapping his cloak around him, he goes in the wake of the messenger. M. le Comte de Cambray is close on his heels.
Five minutes later the General is up on the ramparts. He has thrown a quick, piercing glance round him. There are two thousand men up here, twenty guns, ammunition in plenty. Out there only peasants and a heterogeneous band of some fifteen hundred men. One shot from a gun perhaps would send all that crowd flying, the first fusillade might scatter "the band of brigands," but Marchand cannot, dare not give the positive order to fire; he knows that rank insubordination, positive refusal to obey would follow.
He talks to the men, he harangues, he begs them to defend their city against this "horde of Corsican pirates."
To every word he says, the men but oppose the one cry: "Vive l'Empereur!"
The Comte de Cambray turns in despair to M. de St. Genis, who is a captain of artillery and whose men had hitherto been supposed to be tried and loyal royalists.
"If the men won't fire, Maurice," asks the Comte in despair, "cannot the officers at least fire the first shot?"
"M. le Comte," replies St. Genis through set teeth, for his heart was filled with wrath and shame at the defection of his men, "the gunners have declared that if the officers shoot, the men will shatter them to pieces with their own batteries."
The crowds outside the gate itself are swelling visibly. They press in from every side toward the city loudly demanding the surrender of the town. "Open the gates! open!" they shout, and their clamour becomes more insistent every moment. Already they have broken down the palisades which surround the military zone, they pour down the slopes against the gate. But the latter is heavy, and massive, studded with iron, stoutly resisting axe or pick.
"Open!" they cry. "Open! in the Emperor's name!"
They are within hailing distance of the soldiers on the ramparts: "What price your plums?" they shout gaily to the gunners.
"Quite cheap," retort the latter with equal gaiety, "but there's no danger of the Emperor getting any."
The women sing the old couplet:
"Bon! Bon! Napoléon
Va rentrer dans sa maison!"
and the soldiers on the ramparts take up the refrain:
"Nous allons voir le grand Napoléon
Le vainqueur de toutes les nations!"
"What can we do, M. le Comte?" says Général Marchand at last. "We shall have to give in."
"I'll not stay and see it," replies the Comte. "I should die of shame."
Even while the two men are talking and discussing the possibilities of an early surrender, Napoleon himself has forced his way through the tumultuous throng of his supporters, and accompanied by Victor de Marmont and Colonel de la Bédoyère he advances as far as the gate which still stands barred defiantly against him.
"I command you to open this gate!" he cries aloud.
Colonel Roussille, who is in command, replies defiantly: "I only take orders from the General himself."
"He is relieved of his command," retorts Napoleon.
"I know my duty," insists Roussille. "I only take orders from the General."
Victor de Marmont, intoxicated with his own enthusiasm, maddened with rage at sight of St. Genis, whose face is just then thrown into vivid light by the glare of the torches, cries wildly: "Soldiers of the Emperor, who are being forced to resist him, turn on those treacherous officers of yours, tear off their epaulettes, I say!"
His shrill and frantic cries seem to precipitate the inevitable climax. The tumult has become absolutely delirious. The soldiers on the ramparts tumble over one another in a mad rush for the gate, which they try to break open with the butt-end of their rifles; but they dare not actually attack their own officers, and in any case they know that the keys of the city are still in the hands of Général Marchand, and Général Marchand has suddenly disappeared.
Feeling the hopelessness and futility of further resistance, he has gone back to his hotel, and is even now giving orders and making preparations for leaving Grenoble. Préfet Fourier, hastily summoned, is with him, and the Comte de Cambray is preparing to return immediately to Brestalou.
"We shall all leave for Paris to-morrow, as early as possible," he says, as he finally takes leave of the General and the préfet, "and take the money with us, of course. If the King—which God forbid!—is obliged to leave Paris, it will be most acceptable to him, until the day when the allies are once more in the field and ready to crush, irretrievably this time, this Corsican scourge of Europe."
One or two of the royalist officers have succeeded in massing together some two or three hundred men out of several regiments who appear to be determined to remain loyal.
St. Genis is not among these: his men had been among the first to cry "Vive l'Empereur!" when ordered to fire on the brigand and his hordes. They had even gone so far as to threaten their officers' lives.
Now, covered with shame, and boiling with wrath at the defection, St. Genis asks leave of the General to escort M. le Comte de Cambray and his party to Paris.
"We shall be better off for extra protection," urges M. le Comte de Cambray in support of St. Genis' plea for leave. "I shall only have the coachman and two postillions with me. M. de St. Genis would be of immense assistance in case of footpads."
"The road to Paris is quite safe, I believe," says Général Marchand, "and at Lyons you will meet the army of M. le Comte d'Artois. But perhaps M. de St. Genis had better accompany you as far as there, at any rate. He can then report himself at Lyons. Twenty-five millions is a large sum, of course, but the purpose of your journey has remained a secret, has it not?"
"Of course," says M. le Comte unhesitatingly, for he has completely erased Victor de Marmont from his mind.
"Well then, all you need fear is an attack from footpads—and even that is unlikely," concludes Général Marchand, who by now is in a great hurry to go. "But M. de St. Genis has my permission to escort you."
The General entrusts the keys of the Bonne Gate to Colonel Roussille. He has barely time to execute his hasty flight, having arranged to escape out of Grenoble by the St. Laurent Gate on the north of the town. In the meanwhile a carter from the suburb of St. Joseph outside the Bonne Gate has harnessed a team of horses to one of his wagons and brought along a huge joist: twenty pairs of willing and stout arms are already manipulating this powerful engine for the breaking open of the resisting gate. Already the doors are giving way, the hinges creak; and while Général Marchand and préfet Fourier with their small body of faithful soldiers rush precipitately across the deserted streets of the town, Colonel Roussille makes ready to open the Gate of Bonne to the Emperor and to his soldiers.
"My regiment was prepared to turn against me," he says to his men, "but I shall not turn against them."
Then he formally throws open the gate.
Ecstatic delight, joyful enthusiasm, succeeds the frantic cries of a while ago. Napoleon entering the city of Grenoble was nearly crushed to death by the frenzy of the crowd. Cheered to the echoes, surrounded by a delirious populace which hardly allowed him to move, it was hours before he succeeded in reaching the Hôtel des Trois-Dauphins, where he was resolved to spend the night, since it was kept by an ex-soldier, one of his own Old Guard of the Italian campaign.
The enthusiasm was kept up all night. The town was illuminated. Until dawn men and women paraded the streets singing the "Marseillaise" and shouting "Vive l'Empereur!"
In a small room, simply furnished but cosy and comfortable, the great adventurer, who had conquered half the world and lost it and had now set out to conquer it again, sat with half a dozen of his most faithful friends: Cambronne and Raoul, Victor de Marmont and Emery.