Of course, the devil of a fellow had the last word. His measure was taken, a book of costumes consulted, and a promise made that in twenty-four hours he should be dressed in the height of the fashion of 1813. Cloths were presented for his selection, among them some English fabrics. These he threw aside with disgust.
"The blue cloth of France," cried he, "and made in France! And cut it in such a style that any one seeing me in Pekin would say, 'That's a soldier!'"
The officers of our day have precisely the opposite fancy. They make an effort to resemble all other "gentlemen"[[7]] when they assume the civilian's dress.
Fougas ordered, in the Rue Richelieu, a black satin scarf, which hid his shirt, and reached up to his ears. Then he went toward the Palais Royal, entered a celebrated restaurant, and ordered his dinner. For breakfast he had only taken a bite at a pastry-cook's in the Boulevard, so his appetite, which had been sharpened by the excursion, did wonders. He ate and drank as he did at Fontainebleau. But the bill seemed to him hard to digest: it was for a hundred and ten francs and a few centimes. "The devil!" said he; "living has become dear in Paris!" Brandy entered into the sum total for an item of nine francs. They had given him a bottle, and a glass about the size of a thimble; this gimcrack had amused Fougas, and he diverted himself by filling and emptying it a dozen times. But on leaving the table he was not drunk; an amiable gayety inspired him, but nothing more. It occurred to him to get back some of his money by buying some lottery tickets at Number 113. But a bottle-seller located in that building apprised him that France had not gambled for thirty years. He pushed on to the Théâtre Français, to see if the Emperor's actors might not be giving some fine tragedy, but the poster disgusted him. Modern comedies played by new actors! Neither Talma, nor Fleury, nor Thénard, nor the Baptistes, nor Mlle. Mars, nor Mlle. Raucourt! He then went to the opera, where Charles VI. was being given. The music astounded him at once. He was not accustomed to hear so much noise anywhere but on the battle-field. Nevertheless, his ears soon inured themselves to the clangor of the instruments; and the fatigue of the day, the pleasure of being comfortably seated, and the labor of digestion, plunged him into a doze. He woke up with a start at this famous patriotic song:
"_Guerre aux tyrans! jamais, jamais en France,_
_Jamais l'Anglais ne régnera!_"[[8]]
"No!" cried he, stretching out his arms toward the stage. "Never! Let us swear it together on the sacred altar of our native land! Perish, perfidious Albion! Vive l'Empereur!"
The pit and orchestra arose at once, less to express accord with Fougas' sentiments, than to silence him. During the following entr'acte, a commissioner of police said in his ear, that when one had dined as he had, one ought to go quietly to bed, instead of interrupting the performance of the opera.
He replied that he had dined as usual, and that this explosion of patriotic sentiment had not proceeded from the stomach.
"But," said he, "when, in this palace of misused magnificence, hatred of the enemy is stigmatized as a crime, I must go and breathe a freer air, and bow before the temple of Glory before I go to bed."
"You'll do well to do so," said the policeman.