t bit. He had remained quietly in his place against the foot of the
mast. I had been given to understand long before that he had the rating
of a second-class able seaman (matelot leger) in the fleet which sailed
from Toulon for the conquest of Algeria in the year of grace 1830. And,
indeed, I had seen and examined one of the buttons of his old brown
patched coat, the only brass button of the miscellaneous lot, flat and
thin, with the words Equipages de ligne engraved on it. That sort of
button, I believe, went out with the last of the French Bourbons. "I
preserved it from the time of my Navy Service," he explained, nodding
rapidly his frail, vulture-like head. It was not very likely that he had
picked up that relic in the street. He looked certainly old enough to
have fought at Trafalgar--or at any rate to have played his little part
there as a powder-monkey. Shortly after we had been introduced he had
informed me in a Franco-Provencal jargon, mumbling tremulously with his
toothless jaws, that when he was a "shaver no higher than that" he
had seen the Emperor Napoleon returning from Elba. It was at night,
he narrated vaguely, without animation, at a spot between Frejus and
Antibes in the open country. A big fire had been lit at the side of the
cross-roads. The population from several villages had collected there,
old and young--down to the very children in arms, because the women had
refused to stay at home. Tall soldiers wearing high, hairy caps, stood
in a circle facing the people silently, and their stern eyes and big
moustaches were enough to make everybody keep at a distance. He, "being
an impudent little shaver," wriggled out of the crowd, creeping on his
hands and knees as near as he dared to the grenadiers' legs, and peeping
through discovered standing perfectly still in the light of the fire
"a little fat fellow in a three-cornered hat, buttoned up in a long
straight coat, with a big pale face, inclined on one shoulder, looking
something like a priest. His hands were clasped behind his back. . . .
It appears that this was the Emperor," the Ancient commented with a
faint sigh. He was staring from the ground with all his might, when "my
poor father," who had been searching for his boy frantically everywhere,
pounced upon him and hauled him away by the ear.

The tale seems an authentic recollection. He related it to me many
times, using the very same words. The grandfather honoured me by a
special and somewhat emba