Napoleon; but the other project was good too--it was the 'Conseil du
lion!' as Napoleon called it. This project consisted in a proposal
to occupy the Kremlin with the whole army; to arm and fortify it
scientifically, to kill as many horses as could be got, and salt their
flesh, and spend the winter there; and in spring to fight their way out.
Napoleon liked the idea--it attracted him. We rode round the Kremlin
walls every day, and Napoleon used to give orders where they were to be
patched, where built up, where pulled down and so on. All was decided at
last. They were alone together--those two and myself.

"Napoleon was walking up and down with folded arms. I could not take my
eyes off his face--my heart beat loudly and painfully.

"'I'm off,' said Davoust. 'Where to?' asked Napoleon.

"'To salt horse-flesh,' said Davoust. Napoleon shuddered--his fate was
being decided.

"'Child,' he addressed me suddenly, 'what do you think of our plan?' Of
course he only applied to me as a sort of toss-up, you know. I turned to
Davoust and addressed my reply to him. I said, as though inspired:

"'Escape, general! Go home!--'

"The project was abandoned; Davoust shrugged his shoulders and went out,
whispering to himself--'Bah, il devient superstitieux!' Next morning the
order to retreat was given."

"All this is most interesting," said the prince, very softly, "if it
really was so--that is, I mean--" he hastened to correct himself.

"Oh, my dear prince," cried the general, who was now so intoxicated with
his own narrative that he probably could not have pulled up at the most
patent indiscretion.

"You say, if it really was so!' There was more--much more, I assure
you! These are merely a few little political acts. I tell you I was the
eye-witness of the nightly sorrow and groanings of the great man, and
of that no one can speak but myself. Towards the end he wept no more,
though he continued to emit an occasional groan; but his face grew more
overcast day by day, as though Eternity were wrapping its gloomy mantle
about him. Occasionally we passed whole hours of silence together at
night, Roustan snoring in the next room--that fellow slept like a pig.
'But he's loyal to me and my dynasty,' said Napoleon of him.

"Sometimes it was very painful to me, and once he caught me with tears
in my eyes. He looked at me kindly. 'You are sorry for me,' he said,
'you, my child, and perhaps one other child--my son, the King of
Rome--may gr