"Ha, what's this?" asked Napoleon, noticing that all the courtiers were
looking at something concealed under a cloth.

With courtly adroitness de Beausset half turned and without turning his
back to the Emperor retired two steps, twitching off the cloth at the
same time, and said:

"A present to Your Majesty from the Empress."

It was a portrait, painted in bright colors by Gerard, of the son borne
to Napoleon by the daughter of the Emperor of Austria, the boy whom for
some reason everyone called "The King of Rome."

A very pretty curly-headed boy with a look of the Christ in the Sistine
Madonna was depicted playing at stick and ball. The ball represented the
terrestrial globe and the stick in his other hand a scepter.

Though it was not clear what the artist meant to express by depicting
the so-called King of Rome spiking the earth with a stick, the allegory
apparently seemed to Napoleon, as it had done to all who had seen it in
Paris, quite clear and very pleasing.

"The King of Rome!" he said, pointing to the portrait with a graceful
gesture. "Admirable!"

With the natural capacity of an Italian for changing the expression of
his face at will, he drew nearer to the portrait and assumed a look
of pensive tenderness. He felt that what he now said and did would
be historical, and it seemed to him that it would now be best for
him--whose grandeur enabled his son to play stick and ball with the
terrestrial globe--to show, in contrast to that grandeur, the simplest
paternal tenderness. His eyes grew dim, he moved forward, glanced round
at a chair (which seemed to place itself under him), and sat down on it
before the portrait. At a single gesture from him everyone went out on
tiptoe, leaving the great man to himself and his emotion.

Having sat still for a while he touched--himself not knowing why--the
thick spot of paint representing the highest light in the portrait,
rose, and recalled de Beausset and the officer on duty. He ordered the
portrait to be carried outside his tent, that the Old Guard, stationed
round it, might not be deprived of the pleasure of seeing the King of
Rome, the son and heir of their adored monarch.

And while he was doing M. de Beausset the honor of breakfasting with
him, they heard, as Napoleon had anticipated, the rapturous cries of the
officers and men of the Old Guard who had run up to see the portrait.

"Vive l'Empereur! Vive le roi de Rome! Vive l'Empereur!" came those
ecstatic