“Cartouche, within this hour I have seen the Holy Father—and now the Emperor—oh, what is to become of me!”
“Get yourself superseded by Julie Campionet, who has a walk like an ostrich and a voice like a peacock,” answered Cartouche rudely, “but who does not go about screaming like a cat because she has seen the Pope and the Emperor both in one evening.”
Now, Julie Campionet warmly reciprocated Fifi’s dislike, and was looking on at Fifi’s doings and gloating over the prospect of her failure. Fifi caught Julie’s eye—and she would much rather have been flayed alive than oblige Julie by making a fiasco; so, instantly, Fifi recovered her composure and declared she never felt more at ease in her life, at which Julie Campionet’s spirits sensibly fell.
Meanwhile, everybody, from Moret, the leading man, down to the old woman who acted as candle-lighter, treated Cartouche as if he had been a hero. Moret, who had given himself great airs with Cartouche, embraced him and told him he would never be forgotten by the members of the company, for whom he had procured such an honor. Julie Campionet would likewise have embraced him, if he had encouraged her, and did, in fact, come dangerously near kissing him on the sly, but Cartouche managed to escape at the critical moment. Duvernet oscillated between the stage and the theater, and made so much confusion that Cartouche requested him to keep away from the stage until his cue came.
In truth, but for Cartouche’s self-possession, the Emperor’s presence would have simply caused a terrible catastrophe at the Imperial Theater, and the manager’s Roman tragedy would not have got itself acted at all that night; but, by coolness and the assumption of authority, the curtain came up to the minute, the play began, and went through without a hitch.
As for Fifi, she acted as if inspired, and Julie Campionet saw her hopes of becoming leading lady vanish into thin air. Duvernet, in spite of two large rents in the toga made out of Fifi’s petticoat, was a most imposing senator. In his dying speech, which bore a suspicious likeness to one of Corneille’s masterpieces, his voice could be heard bellowing as far as the corner of the street of the Black Cat.
The Emperor sat through two whole acts and applauded vigorously, and when the curtain came down on the second act, sent for Cartouche, and paid the performance the highest compliments. Especially did he charge Cartouche to say that he thought Duvernet’s death scene the most remarkable he had ever witnessed on or off the stage. And then he handed Cartouche a little tortoise-shell snuff-box, saying:
“It is not likely I shall forget you, Cartouche—that is, not until I forget the bridge of Lodi; though, really, you should have let me over the bridge first.”
Cartouche shook his head and spoke no word, but his stern countenance and his obstinate nose said as plainly as tongue could speak it:
“Your Majesty should not have been on the bridge at all.”