Clementine tried to console him with soothing words.
"You shall live near us," said she. "We will find you a pretty little wife, and you can rear your children. In your leisure moments you can write the history of the great deeds you have done. You will want for nothing: youth, health, fortune, family, all that makes up the happiness of men, is yours. Why then should you not be happy?"
Leon and his parents talked with him in the same way. Everything appertaining to the festive occasion was forgotten in the presence of an affliction so real and a dejection so profound.
He roused himself little by little, and even sang, at dessert, a little song which he had prepared for the occasion.
Here's a health to these fortunate lovers
Who, on this thrice blessed day,
Have singed with the torch of chaste Hymen,
The wings with which Cupid doth stray.
And now, little volatile boy-god,
You must keep yourself quiet at home—
Enchained there by this happy marriage
Where Genius and Beauty are one.
He'll make it, henceforth, his endeavor
To keep Pleasure in Loyalty's power,
Forgetting his naughty old habit
Of roaming from flower to flower.
And Clementine makes the task easy,
For roses spring up at her smile:
From thence the young rascal can steal them
As well as in Venus's isle.
The verses were loudly applauded, but the poor Colonel smiled sadly, talked but little, and did not get fuddled at all. The man with the broken ear could not at all console himself for having a slit ear.[[11]] He took part in the various diversions of the day, but was no longer the brilliant companion who had inspired everything with his impetuous gayety.
The Marshal buttonholed him during the evening and said: "What are you thinking about?"
"I'm thinking of the old messmates who were happy enough to fall at Waterloo with their faces toward the enemy. That old fool of a Dutchman who preserved me for posterity, did me but a sorry service. I tell you, Leblanc, a man ought to live in his own day. Later is too late."
"Oh, pshaw, Fougas, don't talk nonsense! There's nothing desperate in the case. Devil take it! I'll go to see the Emperor to-morrow. The matter shall be looked into. It will all be set straight. Men like you! Why France hasn't got them by the dozen that she should fling them among the soiled linen."