the measure of that exaggeration with which the Emperor's name was ever
treated, and convinced me that it required not time nor distance to
color every incident of his life with the strongest hues of romance. The
topic was a fruitful and favorite one; and certainly few subjects could
with more propriety season the hours around a bivouac fire than the
exploits of the Emperor Napoleon.

Among those whose reminiscences went farthest back was an old
sergeant-major of infantry,--a seared and seamed and weather-beaten
little fellow, who, from fatigues and privations, was dried up to a mass
of tendons and fibres. This little man presented one of those strange
mixtures with which the army abounded,--the shrewdest common sense on
all ordinary topics, with a most credulous faith in any story where
Napoleon's name occurred. It seemed, indeed, as though that one element,
occurring in any tale, dispensed at once with the rules which govern
belief in common cases.

The invulnerability of the Emperor was with him a fruitful theme; and he
teemed with anecdotes of the Egyptian and Italian campaigns, in which it
was incontestably shown that neither shot nor shell had any effect
upon him. But of all the superstitions regarding Napoleon, none had such
complete hold on his imagination, nor was more implicitly believed by
him, than the story of that little "Red Man," who, it was asserted,
visited the Emperor the night before each great battle, and arranged
with him the manoeuvres of the succeeding day.

"L'Homme Bouge," as he was called, was an article of faith in the French
army that few of the soldiers ever thought of disputing. Some from
pure credulity, some from the force of example, and some again from
indolence, believed in this famed personage; but even the veriest
scoffer on more solemn subjects would have hesitated ere he ventured
to assail the almost universal belief in this supernatural agency.
The Emperor's well-known habit of going out alone to visit pickets and
outposts on the eve of a battle was a circumstance too favorable to this
superstition not to be employed in its defence. Besides, it was well
known that he spent hours by himself, when none even of the marshals had
access to him; and on these occasions it was said "L'Homme Bouge" was
with him. Sentinels had been heard to declare that they could overhear
angry words passing between the Emperor and his guest; that threats had
been interchanged between them; and on one