Léon declares that from this moment Prince Nicholas was little better than a madman. His cries of "Bravo!" were such as the insane might have uttered. Clutching my nephew by the arm, he dragged him to the scaffold, saying:
"You do not know 'Dr. Guillotine'? Come and be introduced, then. Come and hear his music. You are a Frenchman and ignorant? Impossible, my friend, impossible."
So he raved, while all in the room took up the cry of "Impossible!" and began to shout and dance in their drunken frenzy like madmen.
Léon fought for his life then as he had never fought before in all wars our Emperor has waged. A strong man, he threw even the Cossacks from him, struck them senseless with any weapon that came to his hands, and was up and down like a cork upon a billow; but all useless, as you may well imagine.
When they got him to the scaffold he knew that his hour had come, and a great calm possessed him.
"I congratulate the Prince of the Assassins," said he to his Highness. "It is only in such a country as this that the butchers are ennobled." And with that he walked straight towards the executioner and held out his hands.
The man seized him as though he were a sheep. The prince himself began to raise the knife by the rope and to caress its gleaming edge. Surely Léon had but a moment to live. He thought as much, and a passionate desire for life set him trembling. That he, so young, he whom so many loved, he to whom day was so fair a thing and the night but a witchery of woman's eyes—that he should perish here, butchered by the insane in an hour of their frenzy! God surely would not permit such a crime as that! Alas! he had forgotten how to pray these many years, and he but stood there, defying them as any one of his Majesty's Guards would have done.
"Assassins!" he cried; and then, as a challenge: "There is not one of you that would dare to cross swords with me!"
They but laughed at him the more, and the prince now pulled the knife so high that all in the room could see it. He was still laughing; but some glimmer of reason had come to him, and that spirit of vengeance which animated him could no longer be denied.
"You murdered twenty thousand honest people with your guillotine in Paris," says he to Léon, as though a hussar of the year 1812 could be responsible for what was done in Paris twenty years before. "Now you must come here to burn the Holy City. Very well; we are going to teach you a lesson."