and they called it the Sun of Austerlitz. But he made this sunlight
himself with his ever-booming guns that left no clouds but those which
succeed the day of battle.

It was this air of the spotless sky, where shone so much glory, where
glistened so many swords, that the youth of the time breathed. They well
knew that they were destined to the slaughter; but they believed that
Murat was invulnerable, and the Emperor had been seen to cross a bridge
where so many bullets whistled that they wondered if he were mortal. And
even if one must die, what did it matter? Death itself was so beautiful,
so noble, so illustrious, in its battle-scarred purple! It borrowed the
color of hope, it reaped so many immature harvests that it became young,
and there was no more old age. All the cradles of France, as indeed all
its tombs, were armed with bucklers; there were no more graybeards, there
were only corpses or demi-gods.

Nevertheless the immortal Emperor stood one day on a hill watching seven
nations engaged in mutual slaughter, not knowing whether he would be
master of all the world or only half. Azrael passed, touched the warrior
with the tip of his wing, and hurled him into the ocean. At the noise of
his fall, the dying Powers sat up in their beds of pain; and stealthily
advancing with furtive tread, the royal spiders made partition of Europe,
and the purple of Caesar became the motley of Harlequin.

Just as the traveller, certain of his way, hastes night and day through
rain and sunlight, careless of vigils or of dangers, but, safe at home
and seated before the fire, is seized by extreme lassitude and can hardly
drag himself to bed, so France, the widow of Caesar, suddenly felt her
wound. She fell through sheer exhaustion, and lapsed into a coma so
profound that her old kings, believing her dead, wrapped about her a
burial shroud. The veterans, their hair whitened in service, returned
exhausted, and the hearths of deserted castles sadly flickered into life.

Then the men of the Empire, who had been through so much, who had lived
in such carnage, kissed their emaciated wives and spoke of their first
love. They looked into the fountains of their native fields and found
themselves so old, so mutilated, that they bethought themselves of their
sons, in order that these might close the paternal eyes in peace. They
asked where they were; the children came from the schools, and, seeing
neither sabres, nor cuirasses, neither infantry