"His beef, monsieur! Yes, the night before the battle he ate his meat raw! And do you know why?"
"No," answered the veteran, turning himself with difficulty in his armchair; "I can not imagine, I am sure."
"The wretch did it to render himself more ferocious, so he would have the courage to see his soldiers exterminated by the enemy,—above all, the conscripts," added the indignant housekeeper. "His sole object in life was to provide food for cannon, as he said, and so to depopulate France by conscriptions that there would not be a single Frenchman left. That was his diabolical scheme!"
Commander Bernard replied to this tirade by another loud burst of laughter.
"Let me ask just this one question," he said. "If Bonaparte desired that there shouldn't be another Frenchman left in France, who the devil would he have had to reign over, then?"
"Why, negroes, of course," snapped the housekeeper, shrugging her shoulders impatiently, and acting quite as if an absurdly easy question had been put to her.
It was such a ridiculous answer, and so entirely unexpected, that a moment of positive stupefaction preceded a fresh outburst of hilarity on the part of the commander, who, as soon as he could control his mirth a little, inquired:
"Negroes, what negroes?"
"Why, those American negroes with whom he was always plotting, and who, while he was on his rock, began a tunnel which, starting at Champ-d'Asile, and passing under St. Helena, was intended to transport to the capital of the empire other negroes, friends of the American negroes, so Bû-û-onaparte, in company with his odious Roustan, could return to ravage all France."
"Really, Mother Barbançon," exclaimed the veteran, admiringly, "I never knew your imagination to soar to such sublime heights before."