"Yes."
It was indeed the emperor, just in the same place and carriage, with one aide-de-camp near him and one opposite him, as I had seen him before.
But his companions were neither Jérôme nor Letort.
Letort was killed, and Jérôme was commissioned to rally the army by Laon.
It was just the same man, it was just the same pale, sickly, impassive face, but his head was bent a little more forward on his chest.
Was it merely from fatigue, or from grief at having staked the world and lost it?
As on the first occasion, he raised his head when he felt the carriage pull up, and threw exactly the same vague look around him which became so penetrating when he fixed it upon a person or scanned the horizon, those two unknown elements behind which danger might always lurk.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"At Villers-Cotterets, sire."
"Good! eighteen leagues from Paris?"