For a moment Rougeard stood irresolute. He had come to impart his tidings to Emile, whom he knew already as an ardent Buonapartist, ready to venture his life in the good cause; but to proclaim them in the midst of a circle of Royalists had been far from his intention. However, he soon recovered his composure. To-morrow all Paris would know the truth; what did it matter about a few hours? With a simple dignity which was not unbecoming, he answered M. de Sartines, “I have the honour, monsieur, to belong to the Old Guard, therefore I have heard to-day what you will all hear to-morrow. The Emperor has set his foot once more upon the soil of France. He has landed near Fréjus, in the Gulf of St. Juan.”
“Then by this time he is a prisoner, if he is not shot, or hanged upon the nearest tree,” said De Cranfort; while Emile sprang to his feet, and shouted, “Vive Napoléon!”
“If my grandson cannot behave at my table like a gentleman, I will thank him to leave it,” said Madame de Salgues with a sternness that amazed every one, and was not without its effect upon Emile, who was accustomed to nothing from her but extreme indulgence.
Ivan, though his own thoughts were sufficiently sorrowful, felt a compassion for the boy, and a dread, not altogether groundless, of what he might be tempted to do if provoked. Turning to his hostess, near whom he sat, he said to her, unheard by the others, “Madame, I pray of you do not be hard with him. Do not let him leave us in this way. His exclamation was natural. I should certainly have done the same had I heard the Czar was coming.”
Cranfort caught the last words, and said with petulance, “It is all his fault.”
“Whose fault?” asked a quiet, elderly abbé, invited because Madame de Salgues thought no party perfect without a slight, a very slight ecclesiastical flavour.
“The fault of the Czar, M. l’Abbé,” returned Cranfort, raising his voice, for the abbé sat at the other side of the table. “If the Corsican adventurer succeeds in erecting his standard once more, and torrents of blood are spilt, it will be the result of the imprudent generosity of the Emperor Alexander. No one can pretend that he was not warned. M. de Talleyrand and every man of sense knew that Elba was no place for Buonaparte. It was keeping a lighted candle at the door of the powder-magazine.”
“It did not require the wit of Talleyrand to find that out,” said M. de Sartines. “The Emperor Alexander may have had political motives of his own sufficient to explain his conduct. Most probably he had. If not, his championship of the Buonapartes does honour possibly to his heart, but little enough to his understanding.”
Ivan was about to speak, but Henri, with a quick motion of his hand, arrested him. “Not one word, Prince Ivan,” he said in a voice low and tremulous with suppressed emotion. “Not one word from your lips to-night! It is I—I whose life he saved—who must defend him. And from what? Is it from the charge of sparing the fallen? of being too generous, too merciful, too trusting? There are very few who need exculpation from such charges. And I, who but for that mercy of his would now be lying in a nameless grave at Vilna, will not sit by and hear them.—Messieurs, I am a man of peace; I hate strife and bloodshed; and I thought that never again should this right hand of mine touch sword or pistol. Yet I am ready, either now or hereafter, with sword or pistol, or both, for any gentleman, or any number of gentlemen, who may desire to meet me in this quarrel.”
“Quel tapage!” muttered Emile. “One man may raise a fine commotion where another may not breathe a word!”