the greatest
French writer?'

'Racine, sire.'

'Then you are a blockhead, for Corneille was infinitely greater. I have
no ear for metre or trivialities of the kind, but I can sympathise with
the spirit of poetry, and I am conscious that Corneille is far the
greatest of poets. I would have made him my prime minister had he had
the good fortune to live in my epoch. It is his intellect which I
admire, his knowledge of the human heart, and his profound feeling.
Are you writing anything at present?'

'I am writing a tragedy upon Henry IV., sire.'

'It will not do, sir. It is too near the present day, and I will not
have politics upon the stage. Write a play about Alexander. What is
your name?'

He had pitched upon the same person whom he had already addressed.

'I am still Gretry, the musician,' said he meekly.

The Emperor flushed for an instant at the implied rebuke. He said
nothing, however, but passed on to where several ladies were standing
together near the door of the card-room.

'Well, madame,' said he to the nearest of them, 'I hope you are behaving
rather better. When last I heard from Paris your doings were furnishing
the Quartier St. Germain with a good deal of amusement and gossip.'

'I beg that your Majesty will explain what you mean,' said she with
spirit.

'They had coupled your name with that of Colonel Lasalle.'

'It is a foul calumny, sire.'

'Very possibly, but it is awkward when so many calumnies cluster round
one person. You are certainly a most unfortunate lady in that respect.
You had a scandal once before with General Rapp's aide-de-camp. This
must come to an end. What is your name?' he continued, turning to
another.

'Mademoiselle de Perigord.'

'Your age?'

'Twenty.'

'You are very thin and your elbows are red. My God, Madame Boismaison,
are we never to see anything but this same grey gown and the red turban
with the diamond crescent?'

'I have never worn it before, sire?'

'Then you had another the same, for I am weary of the sight of it.
Let me never see you in it again. Monsieur de Remusat, I make you a
good allowance. Why do you not spend it?'

'I do, sire.'

'I hear that you have been putting down your carriage. I do not give
you money to hoard in a bank, but I give it to you that you may keep up
a fitting appearance with it. Let me hear that your carriage is back in
the coach-house when I return to Paris. Junot, you rascal, I hear that
you have b