to lend them to the Emperor. It is for France. I strike
the last blow for them, their homes, their wives and children. Fortune
smiles upon us. The enemy is delivered into our hands. They shall be
liberally rewarded."

"The men are hungry," cried a voice from a dark group of officers in
the background.

"They are weary," exclaimed another, under cover of the darkness.

"Who spoke?" asked the Emperor, but he did not wait for an answer,
perhaps he did not care for one. "I, too, am hungry, I, your Emperor,
and I am weary. I have eaten nothing and have ridden the day long.
There is bread, there are guns in the Field-Marshal's army. We shall
take from Bluecher all that we need. Then we can rest. You hear?"

"We hear, Sire."

"Good. Whose division is yonder?"

"Mine, Sire," answered Marshal Ney, riding up and saluting.

"Ah, Prince," said Napoleon, riding over toward him. "Michael," he
added familiarly as he drew nearer, "I am confident that the Prussians
have no idea that we are nearer than Troyes to them. We must get
forward with what we can at once and fall on them before they learn of
our arrival and concentrate. We must move swiftly."

"To-morrow," suggested Ney.

"To-night."

"The conscripts of my young guard are in a state of great exhaustion
and depression. If they could have the night to rest in----"

Napoleon shook his head.

"Advance with those who can march," he said decisively. "We must fall
on Bluecher in the morning or we are lost."

"Impossible!" ejaculated Ney.

"I banished that word from my vocabulary when I first went into Italy,"
said Napoleon. "Where are your troops?"

"Here, your Majesty," answered Ney, turning, pointing back to dark
huddled ranks drooping over their muskets at parade rest.

Napoleon wheeled his horse and trotted over to them. The iron hand of
Ney had kept some sort of discipline and some sort of organization, but
the distress and dismay of the conscripts was but too plainly evident.

"My friends," said the Emperor, raising his voice, "you are hungry----"
a dull murmur of acquiescence came from the battalion--"you are weary
and cold----" a louder murmur--"you are discouraged----" silence.
"Some of you have no arms. You would fain rest. Well I, your Emperor,
am weary, I am hungry, I am old enough to be the father of most of you
and I am wet and cold. But we must forget those things. You wonder
why I have marched you all the day and most of the nig