"Has your majesty any further commands?"
"I will not detain you," said Napoleon, and shaking his minister heartily by the hand, he dismissed him.
After he had left the room the emperor remained for some time lost in thought.
"I cannot directly force events," he said half to himself, "I must allow them to take their course. If my veto were not heard, I should be obliged to undertake a frightful war, and then? I must endeavour by the careful and prudent study of events to turn them to our advantage."
He placed himself before a marble bust of Cæsar which stood on a black pedestal in his cabinet, and he gazed for some time on the beautifully chiselled features of the Roman conqueror of the world.
"Thou great antetype of my house," he said, while an electric brightness beamed from his upturned eyes. "At this moment I too must say, Jacta est alea! But," he added gloomily, "thy dice were thrown by thyself, and forced by thy mighty hand to fall according to thy will. The pitiless iron hand of fate throws my dice, and I must take them as they fall!"
An attendant entered and announced:--"The emperor's breakfast is served."
Napoleon left the cabinet.