“But he will never come back, Monsieur l’Officier.”
“Mille tonnéres! and why not?” thundered the officer, who was waxing wroth, in proportion as his prisoner become cooler. “And why will not the king come back?”
“Oh, I will tell you why, with all my heart,” replied the colonel, “and when you go back to Paris, which you will do by yourself all alone, presently, and even without your soldiers, you can retail the information in every quartier and faubourg. Here! stoop down and I’ll tell you quietly.”
The officer stooped as he was bidden, with a heart full of misgiving, while the colonel shouted with the voice of an officer commanding a regiment,
“Because THE EMPEROR is in France, and will be in L. in a few moments; and further, because his avant-garde is now passing through these streets on the way to the Tuilleries.”
He had scarcely concluded the last sentence, before a tremendous shout of “Vive l’Empereur,” was heard from the street. The officer turned and fled, as Lapin sprang into the room, threw up the window which overhung the street, and joined, with all his might, in the loud viva of joy which marked the unhappy return of Napoleon Buonaparte to the land which his valor had twice won for him.
Colonel and Madame Desart started for Paris early next morning, in the train of the emperor.
SYMBOLS.
———