"Not quite," said the Emperor, with subtle flattery. The Emperor WILLIAM, though he had his failings, was a keen judge of the comparative value of men.
The limits of this article compel me to glance hastily over succeeding epochs in a career with the main drift of which the civilised world is already familiar. After saving Marseilles to the Republic, by a series of actions alternating between desperate valour and brilliant strategy, I went to Paris to report on the great event. Calling on the official entrusted with the duty of considering claims to decorations, I began at once by saying that my own name must not be taken into consideration.
"Let my name," I said, gently but firmly, "be scored out in the proposed list of decorations."
"Mais, Monsieur" he said, "there is no such list."
I, however, was not to be put off with excuse of that kind. I insisted, both to the Secretary of the Minister of War, to M. THIERS, that I should not be decorated. I was only too successful. When the list came out, all my associates at Marseilles were decorated. I was not included. This was all right. It was what I had requested. I could say nothing. All the same, I could not help thinking that my advice had been too literally accepted.
Every morning, for a week after, I called on M. THIERS. At the end of the sixth day he said, "You must go to Riga. I do not quite know where it is, but it sounds remote. You shall be Consul at Riga." I was delighted. Like the President, I was not sure where Riga was; but the salary was certain, and there was fine old Roman flavour about the title Consul.
But it was not to be. I was predestined to be a great Newspaper Correspondent. How that came about cannot be told in this chapter. I will only say that early in my new career I secured the approbation of Mr. DELANE, who, I need scarcely say, was the most competent judge the world ever saw of the merits of a journalist.
At the risk of being dry and bald, I have confined myself to telling accurately what has happened, my greatest ambition being to leave no one the chance of misrepresenting, as his whim, fancy, or passion may dictate, facts in which I am so deeply interested. Let those note them who, after my time, have to defend my memory should it ever be attacked.
