But the gun-barrels were coming down. "Comrade! General! Emperor!" who could be indifferent to that appeal? Disregarding the old Marquis absolutely, as if he were not on the earth, the Emperor came nearer smiling. He was irresistible to these soldiers when he smiled.
"Well," he said, his hands outstretched and open, "soldiers of the Fifth, who were with me in Italy, how are you all? I am come back to see you again, mes enfants," he went on genially. "Is there any one of you who wishes to kill me?"
"No, no, Sire. Certainly not," came the cry.
"Escape," whispered the Marquis to the Englishman, "while there is yet time to take my niece away. To you I commit her.… St. Laurent, to the town with the tidings!"
"By God, no," growled Yeovil, as St. Laurent saluted and galloped rapidly down the road. "I am going to see the end of this. The damned cravens!" he muttered, looking at the soldiers.
"And yet," continued Napoleon to the troops, "you presented your guns at me."
"Sire," cried one of the veterans, dropping his musket and running his ramrod down the barrel, "it is not loaded. We only went through the motions."
The Emperor laughed. He was nearer.
"Lestoype," he said, "is it thou, old comrade, and Grenier and Drehon!"
It was astonishing that he should remember them, but so he did. He went down the line, speaking to the men, inspecting them just as of old. The officers could not keep them in line. They crowded about their old leader. Shouts of "Vive l'Empereur!" rent the air. Men took off their caps, tore out the hated white cockades, trampled them under foot, and from pockets where they had concealed them for this very moment, they replaced them with the tricolor.