de Rivoli_, and marched bravely into the gate.

"Monsieur," cried the porter, "what do you want?"

"The Emperor!"

"Have you an audience letter?"

"Colonel Fougas does not need one. Go and ask references of him who
towers over the _Place Vendome_. He'll tell you that the name of Fougas
has always been a synonym for bravery and fidelity."

"You knew the first Emperor?"

"Yes, my little joker; and I have talked with him just as I am talking
with you."

"Indeed! But how old are you then?"

"Seventy years on the dial-plate of time; twenty-four years on the
tablets of History!"

The porter raised his eyes to Heaven, and murmured:

"Still another! This makes the fourth for this week!"

He made a sign to a little gentleman in black, who was smoking his pipe
in the court of the Tuilleries. Then he said to Fougas, putting his hand
on his arm:

"So, my good friend, you want to see the Emperor?"

"I've already told you so, familiar individual!"

"Very well; you shall see him to-day. That gentleman going along there
with the pipe in his mouth, is the one who introduces visitors; he will
take care of you. But the Emperor is not in the Palace; he is in the
country. It's all the same to you, isn't it, if you do have to go into
the country?"

"What the devil do you suppose I care?"

"Only I don't suppose you care to go on foot. A carriage has already
been ordered for you. Come, my good fellow, get in, and be reasonable!"

Two minutes later, Fougas, accompanied by a detective, was riding to a
police station.

His business was soon disposed of. The commissary who received him was
the same one who had spoken to him the previous evening at the opera. A
doctor was called, and gave the best verdict of monomania that ever sent
a man to Charenton. All this was done politely and pleasantly, without a
word which could put the Colonel on his guard or give him a suspicion of
the fate held in reserve for him. He merely found the ceremonial rather
long and peculiar, and prepared on the spot several well-sounding
sentences, which he promised himself the honor of repeating to the
Emperor.

At last he was permitted to resume his route. The hack had been kept
waiting; the gentleman-usher relit his pipe, said three words to the
driver, and seated himself at the left of the Colonel. The carriage set
off at a trot, reached the _Boulevards_, and took the direction of the
Bastille. It had gotten opposite the _Porte Saint-Martin_, and