Emile had one of his small sharp darts in readiness for his Royalist cousins. “It is not so easy to see the Emperor Alexander since the return of Louis Dix-huit,” he said. “It is no secret that the Bourbon is jealous of the Czar. In order not to interfere with his most Christian Majesty’s ‘divine right’ to be the admired of all admirers in his own capital, Alexander appears to efface himself. He even takes his daily walk at four in the morning, before the ‘beau monde’ is astir and ready to gaze at him.”
“Papa,” asked Stéphanie, “what is divine right?”
“Inhuman wrong,” said Emile under his breath.
“Try this iced pine-apple, mademoiselle,” interposed Ivan, afraid of an argument. “It goes very well with these almond biscuits.”
“This is the third or fourth time, I believe, that the Emperor has gone to Malmaison,” said M. de Sartines a little stiffly. “He is certainly very attentive to the ex-Empress Joséphine.”
“Her health is failing,” Ivan answered, “and no doubt her heart is broken. In my boyhood I believed, with almost every one about me, that Napoleon owed his successes to her. We thought she possessed magical powers, and used to transform herself into a white dove, that she might hear and impart to him the counsels of his enemies. How amazed I would have been had any one told me that Napoleon would abandon her; and that the Czar, finding her forlorn and sorrowful, would, out of chivalrous pity, plead for and comfort her!”
“Of all the bad actions of Napoleon’s bad life,” said M. de Sartines with emphasis, “I believe his treatment of that woman is the worst.”
“Perhaps so, monsieur,” said Ivan. “Still I can scarcely think it, because I have never seen the ex-Empress, while I have seen the miserable remains of the gallant army which he abandoned so cruelly in the frozen plains of Lithuania.”
The next moment he was sorry for his words, for he caught the angry glare in the eyes of Emile. Either he had not heard or he had forgotten that the lad was an ardent admirer of Buonaparte.
“The Emperor is fallen,” said Emile, “therefore, of course, every one finds a stone to fling at him. He was not faultless,—I grant it. You cannot expect real greatness to bind itself down to the rules of a timid conventional morality. But at least he was entirely free from petty vanities and small affectations. You would never find him laying himself out to gain the cheap praise of a magnanimous conqueror from the lips of the vulgar.”