"God send it may be so!" said my mother, and she led me away.
The next day we left at daybreak.
The fifty louis were returned to the lender; but, in commemoration of the courage I had shown in the undertaking, the pistols were given to me. They were splendid double-barrelled pistols, mounted in silver, and were, oddly enough, destined to play a prominent part in the same town of Soissons in 1830.
General Lallemand was not mistaken. Napoleon's march was so rapid that he got the start of the trial; besides, the judges themselves were not apparently sorry to delay matters, and so laid aside their responsibility.
On the 21st March, at six o'clock in the morning, a courier rushed into Villers-Cotterets at full speed. It was hardly light, but a good number of people were already at their doors to hear the news, and all thronged round the courier as he changed horses.
"Well?" they asked him, "what news?"
"Well, gentlemen," he said, "His Majesty the Emperor and King made his entrance into the Tuileries at eight o'clock last night."
A tremendous excitement ensued, and everybody flew off to tell the news; the postmaster alone remained.
"And you are going to spread this news through the department" he asked.