As for me, I felt as if cold water was being forced down my back. "It's all over," I said to myself. "It's no good talking about peace."
But M. Goulden was more hopeful, and after we got home spoke cheerfully of the blessings of liberty and a good constitution.
Aunt Grédel did not take this view. She came to see us the morning after the scene in the café, when all the town was discussing the great news, and began at once, "So it seems the villain has run away from his island?"
Both M. Goulden and I were anxious to avoid a dispute, for Aunt Grédel was really angry, and she couldn't leave the subject.
M. Goulden admitted that he preferred Napoleon to the Bourbons, with their nobles and missionary priests, because the emperor was bound to respect the national property, whereas the later would have destroyed all that the Revolution had accomplished. "Still, I am now, and always shall be till death, for the Republic and the rights of man," M. Goulden concluded.
The old gentleman took his hat and went out to escape further argument, and Aunt Grédel turned to me and told me that M. Goulden was an old fool and always had been, and that I should have to go to Switzerland now, unless Buonaparte was taken before he reached Paris.
In the evening, however, when Aunt Grédel had gone, and we three were together, Catherine said quietly, "M. Goulden is right; he knows more about these things than my mother does, and we will always listen to his advice."
I thought to myself, "Yes, that's all very well; but it will be a horrible thing to have to put on one's knapsack again and be off. I would rather be in Switzerland than in Leipzig."
Each day now brought news of Napoleon's advance, from Grenoble to Lyons, from Lyons to Macon and Auxerre. There was no opposition anywhere to his progress, and the only question that troubled M. Goulden's mind was the attitude of Ney to the emperor. Could Ney, an old soldier of the Revolution, though he had kissed the hand of Louis XVIII., betray the country to please the king? The uneasiness disappeared when we learnt that Ney had followed the example of the army, the citizens, and of all who did not wish to go back to the customs and laws of twenty-five years earlier.
On March 21, just as it was getting dark, we knew that something decisive must have happened at Paris. The drums were calling to arms in the market-place, and a great crowd soon assembled.