rily, with the French pronunciation). Bonaparte, madame,
Bonaparte. The papers, if you please.

LADY. But I assure you-- (He snatches the handkerchief rudely from
her.) General! (Indignantly.)

NAPOLEON (taking the other handkerchief from his breast). You were good
enough to lend one of your handkerchiefs to my lieutenant when you
robbed him. (He looks at the two handkerchiefs.) They match one
another. (He smells them.) The same scent. (He flings them down on the
table.) I am waiting for the despatches. I shall take them, if
necessary, with as little ceremony as the handkerchief. (This
historical incident was used eighty years later, by M. Victorien
Sardou, in his drama entitled "Dora.")

LADY (in dignified reproof). General: do you threaten women?

NAPOLEON (bluntly). Yes.

LADY (disconcerted, trying to gain time). But I don't understand. I--

NAPOLEON. You understand perfectly. You came here because your Austrian
employers calculated that I was six leagues away. I am always to be
found where my enemies don't expect me. You have walked into the lion's
den. Come: you are a brave woman. Be a sensible one: I have no time to
waste. The papers. (He advances a step ominously).

LADY (breaking down in the childish rage of impotence, and throwing
herself in tears on the chair left beside the table by the lieutenant).
I brave! How little you know! I have spent the day in an agony of fear.
I have a pain here from the tightening of my heart at every suspicious
look, every threatening movement. Do you think every one is as brave as
you? Oh, why will not you brave people do the brave things? Why do you
leave them to us, who have no courage at all? I'm not brave: I shrink
from violence: danger makes me miserable.

NAPOLEON (interested). Then why have you thrust yourself into danger?

LADY. Because there is no other way: I can trust nobody else. And now
it is all useless--all because of you, who have no fear, because you
have no heart, no feeling, no-- (She breaks off, and throws herself on
her knees.) Ah, General, let me go: let me go without asking any
questions. You shall have your despatches and letters: I swear it.

NAPOLEON (holding out his hand). Yes: I am waiting for them. (She
gasps, daunted by his ruthless promptitude into despair of moving him
by cajolery; but as she looks up perplexedly at him, it is plain that
she is racking her brains for some device to outwit him. He meets her
regard inflexibly.)

LADY (ri