‘Well, in a couple of days I was known all over the pal-ace and the Kremlin as ‘le petit boyard.’ I only went home to sleep. They were nearly out of their minds about me at home. A couple of days after this, Napoleon’s page, De Ba-zancour, died; he had not been able to stand the trials of the campaign. Napoleon remembered me; I was taken away without explanation; the dead page’s uniform was tried on me, and when I was taken before the emperor, dressed in
it, he nodded his head to me, and I was told that I was ap-pointed to the vacant post of page.
‘Well, I was glad enough, for I had long felt the greatest sympathy for this man; and then the pretty uniform and all that— only a child, you know—and so on. It was a dark green dress coat with gold buttons—red facings, white trou-sers, and a white silk waistcoat—silk stockings, shoes with buckles, and top-boots if I were riding out with his majesty or with the suite.
‘Though the position of all of us at that time was not par-ticularly brilliant, and the poverty was dreadful all round, yet the etiquette at court was strictly preserved, and the more strictly in proportion to the growth of the forebod-ings of disaster.’
‘Quite so, quite so, of course!’ murmured the poor prince, who didn’t know where to look. ‘Your memoirs would be most interesting.’
The general was, of course, repeating what he had told Lebedeff the night before, and thus brought it out glibly enough, but here he looked suspiciously at the prince out of the corners of his eyes.
‘My memoirs!’ he began, with redoubled pride and dig-nity. ‘Write my memoirs? The idea has not tempted me. And yet, if you please, my memoirs have long been written, but they shall not see the light until dust returns to dust. Then, I doubt not, they will be translated into all languages, not of course on account of their actual literary merit, but because of the great events of which I was the actual witness, though but a child at the time. As a child, I was able to penetrate
into the secrecy of the great man’s private room. At nights I have heard the groans and wailings of this ‘giant in distress.’ He could feel no shame in weeping before such a mere child as I was, though I understood even then that the reason for his suffering was the silence of the Emperor Alexander.’
‘Yes, of course; he had written letters to the latter with proposals of peace, had he not?’ put in the prince.
‘We did not know the details of his proposals, but he wrote letter after letter, all day and every day. He was dread-fully agitated. Sometimes at night I would throw myself upon his breast with tears (Oh, how I loved that man!). ‘Ask forgiveness, Oh, ask forgiveness of the Emperor Alexan-der!’ I would cry. I should have said, of course, ‘Make peace with Alexander,’ but as a child I expressed my idea in the naive way recorded. ‘Oh, my child,’ he would say (he loved to talk to me and seemed to forget my tender years), ‘Oh, my child, I am ready to kiss Alexander’s feet, but I hate and abominate the King of Prussia and the Austrian Emperor, and—and—but you know nothing of politics, my child.’ He would pull up, remembering whom he was speaking to, but his eyes would sparkle for a long while after this. Well now, if I were to describe all this, and I have seen greater events than these, all these critical gentlemen of the press and political parties—Oh, no thanks! I’m their very hum-ble servant, but no thanks!’
‘Quite so—parties—you are very right,’ said the prince. ‘I was reading a book about Napoleon and the Waterloo cam-paign only the other day, by Charasse, in which the author does not attempt to conceal his joy at Napoleon’s discom-
fiture at every page. Well now, I don’t like that; it smells of ‘party,’ you know. You are quite right. And were you much
occupied with your service under Napoleon?’
The general was in ecstasies, for the prince’s remarks, made, as they evidently were, in all seriousness and sim-plicity, quite dissipated the last relics of his suspicion.
‘I know Charasse’s book! Oh! I was so angry with his work! I wrote to him and said—I forget what, at this mo-ment. You ask whether I was very busy under the Emperor? Oh no! I was called ‘page,’ but hardly took my duty seriously. Besides, Napoleon very soon lost hope of conciliating the Russians, and he would have forgotten all about me had he not loved me—for personal reasons— I don’t mind saying so now. My heart was greatly drawn to him, too. My duties were light. I merely had to be at the palace occasionally to escort the Emperor out riding, and that was about all. I rode very fairly well. He used to have a ride before dinner, and his suite on those occasions were generally Davoust, myself, and Roustan.’
‘Constant?’ said the prince, suddenly, and quite involun-tarily.
‘No; Constant was away then, taking a letter to the Em-press Josephine. Instead of him there were always a couple of orderlies—and that was all, excepting, of course, the gen-erals and marshals whom Napoleon always took with him for the inspection of various localities, and for the sake of consultation generally. I remember there was one—Da-voust—nearly always with him—a big man with spectacles. They used to argue and quarrel sometimes. Once they were
in the Emperor’s study together—just those two and my-self—I was unobserved—and they argued, and the Emperor seemed to be agreeing to something under protest. Sudden-ly his eye fell on me and an idea seemed to flash across him.
‘Child,’ he said, abruptly. ‘If I were to recognize the Rus-sian orthodox religion and emancipate the serfs, do you think Russia would come over to me?’’
‘Never!’ I cried, indignantly.’ ‘The Emperor was much struck.’
‘In the flashing eyes of this patriotic child I read and accept the fiat of the Russian people. Enough, Davoust, it is mere phantasy on our part. Come, let’s hear your other project.’’
‘Yes, but that was a great idea,’ said the prince, clearly in-terested. ‘You ascribe it to Davoust, do you?’
‘Well, at all events, they were consulting together at the time. Of course it was the idea of an eagle, and must have originated with Napoleon; but the other project was good too—it was the ‘Conseil du lion!’ as Napoleon called it. This project consisted in a proposal to occupy the Kremlin with the whole army; to arm and fortify it scientifically, to kill as many horses as could be got, and salt their flesh, and spend the winter there; and in spring to fight their way out. Na-poleon liked the idea—it attracted him. We rode round the Kremlin walls every day, and Napoleon used to give orders where they were to be patched, where built up, where pulled down and so on. All was decided at last. They were alone to-gether—those two and myself.
‘Napoleon was walking up and down with folded arms.
I could not take my eyes off his face—my heart beat loudly and painfully.
‘I’m off,’ said Davoust. ‘Where to?’ asked Napoleon.
‘To salt horse-flesh,’ said Davoust. Napoleon shuddered— his fate was being decided.
‘Child,’ he addressed me suddenly, ‘what do you think of our plan?’ Of course he only applied to me as a sort of toss-up, you know. I turned to Davoust and addressed my reply to him. I said, as though inspired:
‘Escape, general! Go home!—‘
‘The project was abandoned; Davoust shrugged his shoul-ders and went out, whispering to himself—‘Bah, il devient superstitieux!’ Next morning the order to retreat was giv-en.’
‘All this is most interesting,’ said the prince, very softly, ‘if it really was so—that is, I mean—‘ he hastened to correct
himself.
‘Oh, my dear prince,’ cried the general, who was now so intoxicated with his own narrative that he probably could not have pulled up at the most patent indiscretion.
‘You say, if it really was so!’ There was more—much more, I assure you! These are merely a few little political acts. I tell you I was the eye-witness of the nightly sorrow and groan-ings of the great man, and of that no one can speak but myself. Towards the end he wept no more, though he con-tinued to emit an occasional groan; but his face grew more overcast day by day, as though Eternity were wrapping its gloomy mantle about him. Occasionally we passed whole hours of silence together at night, Roustan snoring in the
next room—that fellow slept like a pig. ‘But he’s loyal to me and my dynasty,’ said Napoleon of him.
‘Sometimes it was very painful to me, and once he caught me with tears in my eyes. He looked at me kindly. ‘You are sorry for me,’ he said, ‘you, my child, and perhaps one other child—my son, the King of Rome—may grieve for me. All the rest hate me; and my brothers are
