"I'm going up into the lantern of the Basilica," he said, "to see if I can see the Germans, who are my enemies as well as yours."
"And will not Monsieur take me, too, and let me have look for look with him through those glasses at the Germans, some of whom I'm going to shoot?"
John smiled.
"If you're going out potting Germans," he said, "you'd better get yourself into a uniform as soon as you can. They have no mercy on franc tireurs."
"I'll chance that. But you'll take me with you into the dome?"
"What's your name?"
"Pierre Louis Bougainville."
"Bougainville! Bougainville! It sounds noble and also historical. I've read of it, but I don't recall where."
The little Frenchman drew himself up, and his black eyes glittered.
"There is a legend among us that it was noble once," he said, "but we don't know when. I feel within me the spirit to make it great again. There was a time when the mighty Napoleon said that every soldier carried a marshal's baton in his knapsack. Perhaps that time has come again. And the great emperor was a little man like me."