e was more than a hero, he was a friend--and
there was as much gratitude as admiration in my idolatry for him. When
he was exiled, I would fain have shared his exile; they refused me that
favor; then I conspired, then I drew my sword against those who had
robbed his son of the crown which France had given him."

"And, in your position, you did well, Pierre; without sharing your
admiration, I understood your gratitude. The projects of exile, the
conspiracies--I approved them all--you know it."

"Well, then, that disinherited child, in whose name I conspired
seventeen years ago, is now of an age to wield his father's sword."

"Napoleon II!" exclaimed the old man, looking at his son with surprise
and extreme anxiety; "the king of Rome!"

"King? no; he is no longer king. Napoleon? no; he is no longer Napoleon.
They have given him some Austrian name, because the other frightened
them. Everything frightens them. Do you know what they are doing with
the son of the Emperor?" resumed the marshal, with painful excitement.
"They are torturing him--killing him by inches!"

"Who told you this?"

"Somebody who knows, whose words are but too true. Yes; the son of the
Emperor struggles with all his strength against a premature death. With
his eyes turned towards France, he waits--he waits--and no one comes--no
one--out of all the men that his father made as great as they once were
little, not one thinks of that crowned child, whom they are stifling,
till he dies."

"But you think of him?"

"Yes; but I had first to learn--oh! there is no doubt of it, for I have
not derived all my information from the same source--I had first to
learn the cruel fate of this youth, to whom I also swore allegiance; for
one day, as I have told you, the Emperor, proud and loving father as he
was, showed him to me in his cradle, and said: 'My old friend, you will
be to the son what you have been to the father; who loves us, loves our
France.'"

"Yes, I know it. Many times you have repeated those words to me, and,
like yourself, I have been moved by them."

"Well, father! suppose, informed of the sufferings of the son of
the Emperor, I had seen--with the positive certainty that I was not
deceived--a letter from a person of high rank in the court of Vienna,
offering to a man that was still faithful to the Emperor's memory, the
means of communicating with the king of Rome, and perhaps of saving him
from his tormentors--"

"What next?" said the work