The Man with the broken Ear by Edmond About (phonics books .TXT) 📕

I'm a colonel of the Grand Empire, and it won't do for drum-majors to give orders to colonels!"

Of course, the devil of a fellow had the last word. His measure was taken, a book of costumes consulted, and a promise made that in twenty-four hours he should be dressed in the height of the fashion of 1813. Cloths were presented for his selection, among them some English fabrics. These he threw aside with disgust.

"The blue cloth of France," cried he, "and made in France! And cut it in such a style that any one seeing me in Pekin would say, 'That's a soldier!'"

The officers of our day have precisely the opposite fancy. They make an effort to resemble all other "gentlemen"[7] when they assume the civilian's dress.

Fougas ordered, in the Rue Richelieu , a black satin scarf, which hid his shirt, and reached up to his ears. Then he went toward the Palais Royal , entered a celebrated restaurant, and ordered his dinner. For breakfast he had only taken a bite at a pastry-cook's in the Boulevard , so his appetite, which had been sharpened by the excursion, did wonders. He ate and drank as he did at Fontainebleau. But the bill seemed to him hard to digest: it was for a hundred and ten francs and a few centimes. "The devil!" said he; "living has become dear in Paris!" Brandy entered into the sum total for an item of nine francs. They had given him a bottle, and a glass about the size of a thimble; this gimcrack had amused Fougas, and he diverted himself by filling and emptying it a dozen times. But on leaving the table he was not drunk; an amiable gayety inspired him, but nothing more. It occurred to him to get back some of his money by buying some lottery tickets at Number 113. But a bottle-seller located in that building apprised him that France had not gambled for thirty years. He pushed on to the Théâtre Français , to see if the Emperor's actors might not be giving some fine tragedy, but the poster disgusted him. Modern comedies played by new actors! Neither Talma, nor Fleury, nor Thénard, nor the Baptistes, nor Mlle. Mars, nor Mlle. Raucourt! He then went to the opera, where Charles VI. was being given. The music astounded him at once. He was not accustomed to hear so much noise anywhere but on the battle-field. Nevertheless, his ears soon inured themselves to the clangor of the instruments; and the fatigue of the day, the pleasure of being comfortably seated, and the labor of digestion, plunged him into a doze. He woke up with a start at this famous patriotic song:

" Guerre aux tyrans! jamais, jamais en France,
Jamais l'Anglais ne régnera! "[8]

"No!" cried he, stretching out his arms toward the stage. "Never! Let us swear it together on the sacred altar of our native land! Perish, perfidious Albion! Vive l'Empereur! "

The pit and orchestra arose at once, less to express accord with Fougas' sentiments, than to silence him. During the following entr'acte , a commissioner of police said in his ear, that when one had dined as he had, one ought to go quietly to bed, instead of interrupting the performance of the opera.

He replied that he had dined as usual, and that this explosion of patriotic sentiment had not proceeded from the stomach.

"But," said he, "when, in this palace of misused magnificence, hatred of the enemy is stigmatized as a crime, I must go and breathe a freer air, and bow before the temple of Glory before I go to bed."

"You'll do well to do so," said the policeman.

He went out, haughtier and more erect than ever, reached the Boulevard, and ran with great strides as far as the Corinthian temple at the end. While on his way, he greatly admired the lighting of the city. M. Martout had explained to him the manufacture of gas; he had not understood anything about it, but the glowing and ruddy flame was an actual treat to his eyes.

As soon as he had reached the monument commanding the entrance to the Rue Royale , he stopped on the pavement, collected his thoughts for an instant, and exclaimed:

"Oh, Glory! Inspirer of great deeds, widow of the mighty conqueror of Europe! receive the homage of thy devoted Victor Fougas! For thee I have endured hunger, sweat, and frost, and eaten the most faithful of horses. For thee I am ready to brave further perils, and again to face death on every battle-field. I seek thee rather than happiness, riches, or power. Reject not the offering of my heart and the sacrifice of my blood! As the price of such devotion, I ask nothing but a smile from thy eyes and a laurel from thy hand!"

This prayer went all glowing to the ears of Saint Marie Madeleine , the patroness of the ex-temple of Glory. Thus the purchaser of a chateau sometimes receives a letter addressed to the original proprietor.

Fougas returned by the Rue de la Paix and the Place Vendôme , and saluted, in passing, the only familiar figure he had yet found in Paris. The new costume of Napoleon on the column did not displease him in any way. He preferred the cocked hat to a crown, and the gray surtout to a theatrical cloak.

The night was restless. In the Colonel's brain a thousand diverse projects crossed each other in all directions. He prepared the little speech which he should make to the Emperor, going to sleep in the middle of a phrase, and waking up with a start in the attempt to lay hold on the idea which had so suddenly vanished. He put out and relit his candle twenty times. The recollection of Clementine was occasionally intermingled with dreams of war and political utopias. But I must confess that the young girl's figure seldom got any higher than the second place.

But if the night appeared too long, the morning seemed short in proportion. The idea of meeting the new master of the empire face to face, inspired and chilled him in turn. For an instant he hoped that something would be lacking in his toilet--that some shopkeeper would furnish him an honorable pretext for postponing his visit until the next day. But everybody displayed the most desperate punctuality. Precisely at noon, the trousers à la Cosaque and the frogged surtout were on the foot of the bed opposite the famous Bolivar hat.

"I may as well be dressing," said Fougas. "Possibly this young man may not be at home. In that case I'll leave my name, and wait until he sends for me."

He got himself up gorgeously in his own way, and, although it may appear impossible to my readers, Fougas, in a black satin scarf and frogged surtout, was not homely nor even ridiculous. His tall figure, lithe build, lofty and impressive carriage, and brusque movements, were all in a certain harmony with the costume of the olden time. He appeared strange, and that was all. To keep his courage up, he dropped into a restaurant, ate four cutlets, a loaf of bread, a slice of cheese, and washed it all down with two bottles of wine. The coffee and supplements brought him up to two o'clock, and that was the time he had set for himself.

He tipped his hat slightly over one ear, buttoned his buckskin gloves, coughed energetically two or three times before the sentinel at the Rue de Rivoli , and marched bravely into the gate.

"Monsieur," cried the porter, "what do you want?"

"The Emperor!"

"Have you an audience letter?"

"Colonel Fougas does not need one. Go and ask references of him who towers over the Place Vendôme . He'll tell you that the name of Fougas has always been a synonym for bravery and fidelity."

"You knew the first Emperor?"

"Yes, my little joker; and I have talked with him just as I am talking with you."

"Indeed! But how old are you then?"

"Seventy years on the dial-plate of time; twenty-four years on the tablets of History!"

The porter raised his eyes to Heaven, and murmured:

"Still another! This makes the fourth for this week!"

He made a sign to a little gentleman in black, who was smoking his pipe in the court of the Tuilleries. Then he said to Fougas, putting his hand on his arm:

"So, my good friend, you want to see the Emperor?"

"I've already told you so, familiar individual!"

"Very well; you shall see him to-day. That gentleman going along there with the pipe in his mouth, is the one who introduces visitors; he will take care of you. But the Emperor is not in the Palace; he is in the country. It's all the same to you, isn't it, if you do have to go into the country?"

"What the devil do you suppose I care?"

"Only I don't suppose you care to go on foot. A carriage has already been ordered for you. Come, my good fellow, get in, and be reasonable!"

Two minutes later, Fougas, accompanied by a detective, was riding to a police station.

His business was soon disposed of. The commissary who received him was the same one who had spoken to him the previous evening at the opera. A doctor was called, and gave the best verdict of monomania that ever sent a man to Charenton. All this was done politely and pleasantly, without a word which could put the Colonel on his guard or give him a suspicion of the fate held in reserve for him. He merely found the ceremonial rather long and peculiar, and prepared on the spot several well-sounding sentences, which he promised himself the honor of repeating to the Emperor.

At last he was permitted to resume his route. The hack had been kept waiting; the gentleman-usher relit his pipe, said three words to the driver, and seated himself at the left of the Colonel. The carriage set off at a trot, reached the Boulevards , and took the direction of the Bastille. It had gotten opposite the Porte Saint-Martin , and Fougas, with his head at the window, was continuing the composition of his impromptu speech, when an open carriage drawn by a pair of superb chestnuts passed, so to speak, under his very nose. A portly man with a gray moustache turned his head, and cried, "Fougas!"

Robinson Crusoe, discovering the human footprint on his island, was not more astonished and delighted than our hero on hearing that cry of "Fougas!" To open the door, jump out into the road, run to the carriage, which had been stopped, fling himself into it at a single bound, without the help of the step, and fall into the arms of the portly gentleman with the gray moustache, was all the work of a second. The barouche had long disappeared, when the detective at a gallop, followed by his hack at a trot, traversed the line of the Boulevards , asking all the policemen if they had not seen a crazy man pass that way.


CHAPTER XVI.

THE MEMORABLE INTERVIEW BETWEEN COLONEL FOUGAS AND HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH.


In falling upon the neck of the big man with the gray moustache, Fougas supposed he was embracing Massena. He naturally intimated as much to him, whereupon the owner of the barouche burst into a