"

As I heard this story, my very blood curdled in my veins, and I looked
with a kind of dread on him who now rode a few paces in front of
me,--the stern and pitiless Napoleon.

At last we entered the court of the Tuileries, when the Emperor,
dismissing his staff, entered the Palace, and we separated, to follow
our own plans for the evening. For a moment or two I remained uncertain
which way to turn. I wished much to see Duchesne, yet scarcely hoped to
meet with him by returning to the Luxembourg. It was not the time to be
away from him, at a moment like this, and I resolved to seek him out.

For above an hour I went from cafe to cafe, where he was in the habit of
resorting, but to no purpose. He had not been seen in any of them during
the day; so that at length I turned homeward with the faint hope that I
should see him there on my arrival.

Somehow I never had felt more sad and depressed; and the events of the
day, so far from making me participate in the general joy, had left me
gloomy and desponding. My spirit was little in harmony with the gay and
merry groups that passed along the streets, chanting their campaigning
songs, and usually having some old soldier of the "Guard" amongst
them; for they felt it as a fete, and were hurrying to the cabarets to
celebrate the day of Austerlitz.

CHAPTER XIII. THE CHEVALIER.

When men of high courage and proud hearts meet with reverses in life,
our anxiety is rather to learn what new channel their thoughts and
exertions will take in future, than to hear how they have borne up under
misfortune. I knew Duchesne too well to suppose that any turn of fate
would find him wholly unprepared; but still, a public reprimand, and
from the lips of the Emperor, too, was of a nature to wound him to the
quick, and I could not guess, nor picture to myself in what way he would
bear it. The loss of grade itself was a thing of consequence, as the
service of the _elite_ was reckoned a certain promotion; not to speak
of--what to him was far more important--the banishment from Paris and
its _salons_ to some gloomy and distant encampment. In speculations like
these I returned to my quarters, where I was surprised to discover that
the chevalier had not been since morning. I learned from his servant
that he had dismissed him, with his horses, soon after leaving the
Tuileries, and had not returned home from that time.

I dined alone that day, and sat moodily by myself, thinking over the
even