The accent, the tone of voice in which she said these few words, sent a thrill through me; and as I looked again, I recognized the young lady who stood at Madame Bonaparte's side on the memorable day of my fall. Perhaps my astonishment made me start; for she turned round towards me, and with a soft and most charming smile saluted me,
“How they are laughing in that room!” said she, turning towards her other companions. “Monsieur de Custine has deserted his dear friend this evening, and left her to her unassisted defence.”
“Ma foi,” replied he, “I got ill rewarded for my advocacy. It was only last week, when I helped her out through one of her blunders in grammar she called me a 'ganache' for my pains.”
“How very ungrateful! You that have been interpreter to her, her tutor for the entire winter, without whom she could neither have obtained an ice nor a glass of water!”
“So is it; but you are all ungrateful. But I think I had better go and pay my respects to her. Pray, come along with me.”
I followed the party into a small room fitted up like a tent, where, amid some half-dozen persons assembled around like an audience, sat a large, florid, and good-looking person, her costume of scarlet velvet, turban, and robe adding to the flushed and high-colored expression of her features. She was talking in a loud voice, and with an accent of such patois as I should much more naturally have expected in a remote faubourg than in the gilded salons of the Tuileries. She had been relating some anecdotes of military life, which came within her own experience; and evidently amused her auditory as much by her manner as the matter of her narrative.
“Oui, parbleu,” said she, drawing a long breath, “I was only the wife of a sergeant in the 'Gardes Françaises' in those days; but they were pleasant times, and the men one used to see were men indeed. They were not as much laced in gold, nor had not so much finery on their jackets; but they were bold, bronzed, manly fellows. You 'd not see such a poor, miserable little fellow as De Custine there, in a whole demi-brigade.” When the laugh this speech caused, and in which her own merry voice joined, subsided, she continued; “Where will you find, now, anything like the Twenty-second of the line? Pioche was in that. Poor Pioche! I tied up his jaw in Egypt when it was smashed by a bullet. I remember, too, when the regiment came back, your husband, the General, reviewed them in the court below, and poor Pioche was quite offended at not being noticed. 'We were good friends,' quoth he, 'at Mount Tabor, but he forgets all that now; that 's what comes of a rise in the world. “Le Petit Caporal” was humble enough once, I warrant him; but now he can't remember me.' Well, they were ordered to march past in line; and there was Pioche, with his great dark eyes fixed on the General, and his big black beard flowing down to his waist. But no, he never noticed him no more than the tambour that beat the rappel. He could bear it no longer; his head was twisting with impatience and chagrin; and he sprang out of the lines, and seizing a brass gun,—a pièce de quatre,—he mounted it like a fusee to his shoulder, and marched past, calling out, 'Tu'—he always tu'toied him—' tu te rappelles maintenant, n'est-ce pas, petit?'”
No one enjoyed this little story more than Madame Bonaparte herself, who laughed for several minutes after it was over. Story after story did she pour forth in this way; most of them, however, had their merit in some personality or other, which, while recognized by the rest, had no attraction for me. There was in all she said the easy self-complacency of a kind-hearted but vulgar woman, vain of her husband, proud of his services, and perfectly indifferent to the habits and usages of a society 'whose manners she gave herself no trouble to imitate, nor of whose ridicule was she in the least afraid.