The brilliantly-lighted rooms seemed to darken when the friendly face had turned away. Dunoisse, wearied and discouraged, began to think of taking leave. As he looked about for his hostess there was a bustle near the door. The agitation spread to the confines of the most distant room of the suite. Loud, eager voices were heard from the anteroom, the heavy crimson curtain was dragged back by no gentle hand.
A man in brilliant Staff uniform, the white-haired general officer who had gone by Dunoisse a few moments before with Madame de Roux upon his arm, appeared in the archway towards which the well-dressed mob now pressed and surged. His eyes shone—his face had the pallor of intense emotion and the radiance of unspeakable joy. He cried, in a loud, hoarse, rattling voice that carried from room to room like a discharge of grape-shot:
“Prince Louis Napoleon is in Paris! He has arrived at the Hôtel du Rhin!”
He tore his sword from the scabbard—held it gleaming high above his haggard, radiant head, and shouted in stentorian tones:
“Long live the Emperor!”
And the scented, well-dressed crowd, revivified by the utterance of that name of ancient magic, inspired by the breath of an immense enthusiasm, crazy with joy in the anticipation of what they knew not, echoed the shout:
“Long live the Emperor!”
XXXV
France is the most womanly of all the nations. A man once possessed her who caused her such misery that she adored him as a god. He wrung the tears from her eyes, the blood from her veins, the gold from her coffers. He slew her sons in hecatombs, and yet she gave, and gave. And when a dwarfish being of devouring passions and colossal ambitions rose up and said: “I bear the dead man’s name. Worship me, living, now that he is no more!” she gave him all she had.
To these Imperialists, the exile who had returned was not Charles Louis Bonaparte, Prince-Pretender to the Imperial Throne. He was the Emperor. And as though he had been indeed the wearer of the little cocked hat and the gray surtout, they greeted the news of his return with a joy they themselves would barely have credited ten minutes before.