"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.