“Do you know the reason, M. l’officier, why I have come to L.?” asked M. Pierre.
“Dame!” replied the officer, “how should I know why you have come to L.? My business is to see that your passports are correct, if you please, and I will trouble you to show them to me as early as you can make it convenient to do so, for standing in the rain does not benefit the constitution.”
“I am sorry,” returned the traveler, “that you have so little curiosity, my friend; but as you will not ask me the question, I will give you the reason of my own accord. I came here because I knew that Jacques Lapin would be the officer on guard to-night, and would allow me to pass even if he suspected my disguise.”
“Diable!” shouted the other—“Eh! pardieu! no man knows me by that name except my former colonel, Monsieur Desart,” and he looked up in the face of his visiter by the light of the lantern which he held in his hand. “Ventrebleu! it is indeed he, and the other must be —”
“Silence!” interrupted the colonel. “Here are the passports, let them be visées directly.”
The alacrity with which the order was obeyed manifested some authority on the one hand, and no small amount of obedience on the other. In considerably less time than usual the passports were returned to the travelers, the gloomy postillion mounted to his former perch, and the carriage slowly rumbled through the ill-paved, ill-lighted, and otherwise ill-appointed town of L.
Until they reached the hotel neither of the travelers could trust himself to speak. The victory over impending danger and the present sense of security were too much for words. But as soon as the door of the double-bedded room which they had ordered had closed upon them, they threw themselves into each other’s arms, and sunk on their knees together in gratitude for their deliverance.
Colonel Desart had risen from a very humble rank in a foot regiment to be its colonel. He in a great measure owed his promotion to courage, excellent military judgment, and that admirable savoir-faire which is peculiarly characteristic of an educated Frenchman. He was, nevertheless, indebted for much of the signal good fortune which attended his rise to the partiality of the emperor. Napoleon, who was a profound believer in physiognomy, and who moreover prided himself on being an almost infallible physiognomist, imagined that he could discover marks of great fidelity in the lineaments of Desart’s visage, and trusted him accordingly. Nor was he mistaken; for Desart was ever grateful for the patronage bestowed, and the kindness which was manifested toward him.
It was owing to this partiality that Desart had been able to intercede successfully with the emperor for the life of Jacques Lapin, who had once been condemned to be shot, for a frolick which might have been attended with serious consequences. Nothing would please M. Jacques Lapin, private of the —th foot, on the evening before Jena, when it was absolutely necessary that the position of the army should be kept as much as possible from the knowledge of the enemy, but to adorn two stuffed images of the Emperor of Austria and his imperial spouse with heavy cartridges, and display the same by the aid of fire before the eyes of his delighted countrymen. The reflection of Lapin’s pyrotechnic pleasantry shone even in the tent of Napoleon. The offender was dragged forth and ordered for instant execution. But Desart seized the moment when the emperor’s anger had somewhat abated, ridiculed the exhibition of the unfortunate artiste, proved to demonstration that he had been incited thereto only by his hatred of the enemies of France, got the emperor into good temper and secured a pardon for Lapin, who, as we have seen, did not omit to be grateful in the hour of need.
After basking for so long a period in the sunshine of the emperor’s favor it was with sincere grief that Desart learned, on his return from Moscow, after a long and tedious illness which afflicted him on his way, that his patron and benefactor had quitted France and was then in the island of Elba. His first impulse was to disregard his own feelings as a husband, to leave, for his young and amiable wife, the still ample remnant of his once considerable fortune, and to follow his illustrious patron to his place of exile. But the formation of those wild but heroic clubs of “Buonapartists” led him to change his determination. He felt that he could do more good to the cause of the emperor by assisting it with his counsel, and, if necessary, with his sword, than if he were to retire to the presence of Napoleon for the purpose of sharing an exile which, to say the least, was inactive and useless. He therefore resolved to remain in France. He joined one of the most powerful of these clubs, and became so enthusiastic in his desire for an immediate counter revolution that he was unable, in public, sufficiently to conceal his political bias. He soon fell under the suspicion of the suspicious court, and was fortunate enough to receive, from a devoted brother officer, information of an arrest having been signed, within a minute or two after that document had passed under the hands of the minister. He had scarcely time to effect the necessary disguise of his person, and to pass through one of the gates of Paris, before the alarm was given generally, and ordered to be disseminated throughout the provinces. With the aid of an old passport, however, the date of which had been ingeniously altered, he contrived to evade all the posts on the route, until he arrived at L., where his confidence in his disguise failed him, and he resolved rather to trust to the fidelity and gratitude of his former subordinate soldier.