intently with his laughing, kindly eyes.

"Well, if you hadn't told me you were Russian, I should have wagered
that you were Parisian! You have that... I don't know what, that..." and
having uttered this compliment, he again gazed at him in silence.

"I have been in Paris. I spent years there," said Pierre.

"Oh yes, one sees that plainly. Paris!... A man who doesn't know Paris
is a savage. You can tell a Parisian two leagues off. Paris is Talma, la
Duchenois, Potier, the Sorbonne, the boulevards," and noticing that
his conclusion was weaker than what had gone before, he added quickly:
"There is only one Paris in the world. You have been to Paris and have
remained Russian. Well, I don't esteem you the less for it."

Under the influence of the wine he had drunk, and after the days he had
spent alone with his depressing thoughts, Pierre involuntarily enjoyed
talking with this cheerful and good-natured man.

"To return to your ladies--I hear they are lovely. What a wretched idea
to go and bury themselves in the steppes when the French army is
in Moscow. What a chance those girls have missed! Your peasants,
now--that's another thing; but you civilized people, you ought to know
us better than that. We took Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Naples, Rome,
Warsaw, all the world's capitals.... We are feared, but we are loved.
We are nice to know. And then the Emperor..." he began, but Pierre
interrupted him.

"The Emperor," Pierre repeated, and his face suddenly became sad and
embarrassed, "is the Emperor...?"

"The Emperor? He is generosity, mercy, justice, order, genius--that's
what the Emperor is! It is I, Ramballe, who tell you so.... I assure you
I was his enemy eight years ago. My father was an emigrant count.... But
that man has vanquished me. He has taken hold of me. I could not resist
the sight of the grandeur and glory with which he has covered France.
When I understood what he wanted--when I saw that he was preparing a bed
of laurels for us, you know, I said to myself: 'That is a monarch,' and
I devoted myself to him! So there! Oh yes, mon cher, he is the greatest
man of the ages past or future."

"Is he in Moscow?" Pierre stammered with a guilty look.

The Frenchman looked at his guilty face and smiled.

"No, he will make his entry tomorrow," he replied, and continued his
talk.

Their conversation was interrupted by the cries of several voices at
the gate and by Morel, who came to say that some Wurttemberg hussars