Once more did the Emperor reach the window, and again he began to tremble, with his hands raised: 'Oh! those guns, those guns! Will they never stop?'
Perhaps the terrible thought of his responsibility was arising within him, with a vision of the thousands of bleeding corpses stretched upon the ground over yonder, through his fault. Perhaps, though, it was but the melting of his heart—the pitiful heart of a dreamer, of a man in reality good-natured and haunted by humanitarian notions. And albeit Fate had dealt him this frightful blow—which was crushing and sweeping away his fortune as though it were but a bit of straw—he yet found tears for others, was distracted that this useless butchery should still continue, and lacked the strength to endure it any longer. That villainous cannonade was now rending his breast, at each moment increasing his agony.
'Oh! those guns, those guns! Make them stop firing at once—at once.'
And then this Emperor, who, having confided his powers to the Empress-Regent, no longer had any throne; this generalissimo, who, since he had surrendered the supreme command to Marshal Bazaine, no longer commanded, awoke once more to the exercise of his power—to the irresistible needment of being the master for the last time. Since his stay at Châlons he had kept in the background, had not given an order; content, in his resignation, to become nothing more than a nameless and cumbersome inutility, a troublesome parcel carried along among the baggage train of the troops. And it was only in the hour of defeat that the emperor again awoke within him; the first, the only order that he was yet to give, in the scared compassion of his heart, was to hoist the white flag upon the citadel to beg a truce.
'Oh! those guns, those guns! Take a sheet, a table-cloth, no matter what! Run quickly, tell them to stop those guns!'
The aide-de-camp hastily left the room, and the Emperor continued his wavering march from the chimney-piece to the window, whilst the batteries kept on thundering, shaking the house from top to bottom.
Delaherche was still talking with Rose when a sergeant, on duty at the Sub-Prefecture, ran into the lodge: 'Mademoiselle,' said he, 'we can't find anything. I can't see a servant anywhere. Do you happen to have any linen—a piece of white linen?'
'Will a napkin do?'
'No, no; that wouldn't be large enough. Half a sheet would do.'
Rose, ever obliging, had already darted to the wardrobe. 'I haven't any half-sheets,' said she. 'A large piece of white linen—no, I don't see anything that would suit you—Oh! would you like a table-cloth?'