"Is this charge true?" asked Napoleon, quickly, quivering with one of his tremendous tornadoes of passion.
St. Eustache could not answer; but he nodded his head.
"Your sword!" cried the emperor.
Mechanically the criminal drew his sabre; he had thrown off his domino, and now stood revealed in the uniform he disgraced, and offered the hilt to the emperor. Napoleon clutched it, and snapped the blade under foot. Then, tearing off his epaulets, he threw them on the floor, stamped on them, and beckoning to an officer who stood by, gasped out,—
"A guard, a guard!"
In a few minutes the tramp of armed men was heard in the saloon, and the wretched culprit was removed.
"General Lioncourt," said the emperor to his recovered officer, "your new commission shall be made out to-morrow. In the mean while the lovely Leonide shall teach you to forget your trials."
The assemblage broke up. Lioncourt, his wife, and her faithful brother retired to their now happy home.
The next day was fixed for the trial of the guilty St. Eustache before a court martial—a mere formal preliminary to his execution, for he had confessed his crime; but it appeared that during the preceding night he had managed to escape.
Flying from justice, the wretched criminal reached one of the bridges that span the Seine. Climbing to the parapet, he gazed down into the dark and turbid flood, now black as midnight, that rolled beneath the yawning arch. There was no star in the sky, and here and there only a dim light twinkled, reflected in the muddy wave. Daylight was beginning to streak the east with sickly rays. Soon the great city would be astir. Soon hoarse voices would be clamoring for the traitor, the assassin, the dastard, who, in the hour of victory, had raised his hand against a brother Frenchman. Soon, if he lingered, his ears would be doomed to hear the death penalty—soon the muskets, whose fire he had so often commanded, would be levelled against his breast. All was lost,—all for which he had schemed and sinned,—the applause of his countrymen, the favor of his emperor, the love of Leonide. At least, he would disappoint Paris of a spectacle. He would die by his own act. A sudden spring, a heavy plunge, a few bubbles breaking on the black surface, and the wretched criminal was no more!