"For a very simple reason," I replied. "I am poor and she is rich, and I cannot obtain the prize until I have a house and garden."
He listened eagerly, then questioned me a great deal, and at last fell into a a reverie, and remained silent and absorbed, until we arrived at the convent, where the good monks came out to receive us. I did not pay much attention to this, I was so chagrined. A little time after, the officer came to me with a letter, which he directed me to take to the headquarters of the army, on the other side of the mountain. I went and returned in the evening from Saint Pierre with the answer. Imagine my surprise and mortification when I found that the person with whom I had spoken so familiarly was none other than the first consul, and his companions were General Duroe and Secretary Bourrienne. I was terrified, thinking I should be thrown into prison for daring to speak so familiarly to my superior. What an end to my fears! The first consul gave me for my trouble a house, garden, and money, so that all my dreams were in an instant realized. I could now marry Margaret, and I was so completely overcome with joy that I thought it was a miracle. This great man did all for me, and you can now see why I love the emperor, and why all my happy remembrances are dated from the 20th of May.
This was only one of the many kind acts of Napoleon during his glorious life; and if we are electrified in reading of his high military deeds, how much more touching are those simple charities which show the beauty of his soul, and the goodness and generosity of his heart, that will ever render his memory immortal.
Joseph had related with so much spirit and animation his astonishing adventure, and Robert had listened with such eagerness, that neither thought of hastening their steps. The guide had necessarily consumed more time in relating it than we take, and night was fast coming on. The sun had long gone down, and the guide listened uneasily to a kind of rolling noise that sounded like distant thunder.
"The deuce!" he cried, "it will not be long before it is upon us. It is the voice of the storm; don't you hear it? Oh! mercy! we have lost time, and I have been the cause of it. O holy Virgin, come to our help!"
Robert could not conceive the cause of his fright, but, stopping to listen, he felt the same terror. "O Lord my God, protect me!" was his simple prayer, which gave him strength to follow the guide, and the consciousness of danger gave them wings.
A violent wind filled the air with the snow that was loosened by the mildness of the atmosphere, and it was so thick that they could scarcely see. Then the tempest flapped its strongest wings, and moved huge masses of snow, which threatened at each moment to ingulf them. These frightful avalanches, these precipices, these abysses without bottom, these peaks almost lost to sight, these eternal glaciers, and the imminent peril which appeared on all sides, and presented, above all, the image of death; all these sublime horrors, which freeze with fear the heart of guilty man, Robert contemplated with joyous tranquillity. Before the awful majesty of this grand scene, he adored God, whose powerful hand can raise the anger of the elements or calm them at his pleasure. But the tempest increased so much in fury that he was obliged to concentrate all his faculties to preserve his equilibrium. The snow was blinding, and the guide, in terror of making false steps that might plunge them into some abyss, went along hesitatingly, lamenting and believing they were lost. More uneasy for the guide than himself, in their alarming position, Robert tried to raise his courage by speaking of his wife and children, when in an opening of the path a large sign appeared.
"Oh! we are saved:" said the guide in a faltering voice, and, with a hand made stronger by hope, rang a large bell, which had a clear, vibrating sound.
This was the signal of distress that told the good monks that travellers needed their help. But in the raging of the storm the sound of the bell is not heard at the convent, and, numbed with cold and fatigue, Joseph swoons on the snow. Robert tries to warm him and bring him back to consciousness, but without avail, and at last he is seized with vertigo and dreadful shiverings, and his numbed limbs refuse to take him further. But the strength of his soul is greater than his body, and he falls breathing a prayer to God. Not a sound but the noise of the elements is heard, and the sliding of the snow that covers their inanimate bodies, and threatens to leave no trace of them.