extra fold by pressing down upon his high black stock. Little Fidele lay again before the fire, and the ticking of the clock alone disturbed the stillness of the room. The worthy Mayor had not slept more than half an hour, however, when the door burst open, and Madame Girouette, pale and excited, rushed into the room and seized him by the arm.

"Up! up, man!" she cried, " Bonaparte is here!" "Long live the King," said M. Girouette drowsily.

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Bonaparte! Bonaparte! man!" shrieked Madame Girouette, shaking him violently, "Bonaparte is here! His advance-guard has passed the suburb of la Guillotiere. They have appeared at the bridge. The officers, the soldiers, the people are raising deafening shouts. The shakos are on the bayonets. The barricades are thrown down. Everyone is rushing forward to welcome the new arrivals." Little Fidele barked joyfully.

"Long live the Emperor!" cried Mayor Girouette, starting up, seizing his hat and ringing his bell:

"Down with the white flag and up with the tricolor!" he roared to Laserre as he met him in the hall.

Down the staircase hurried the stout Mayor and Madame his wife. The people were rushing from all quarters crying "Vive 1'Empereur!" In the distance could be heard the strains of the "Marseillaise."

Mon Dieu! man," shrieked Madame Girouette as they reached the doorway, "your cockade!"

The Mayor snatched off his hat. Heavens! there was the white cockade of the Bourbons. Up the staircase three steps at a time ran stout Mayor Girouette, dashed into his study and sprang to his desk. The

tricolored cockade was not there! Whisk went the papers flying in all directions as M. Jacques rummaged his desk. The strains of the "Marseillaise" sounded louder and nearer. They were coming!

"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! my official head!" cried Mayor Girouette, careering about the apartment. In came little Fidele barking joyfully and ran against his legs. "Le diable!" roared Mayor Girouette, giving poor Fidele a terrific kick that sent him flying across the room. Crash went the dog into a little mahogany table, over it fell, and the vase upon it was broken into a thousand pieces, and there on the floor lay the much-sought-for and ardently-desired tricolored cockade! "God be praised!" cried Mayor Girouette, seizing it and rushing down stairs. Was he in time? Yes, there they were! The band playing the "Marseillaise," the people shouting, the Emperor on his white steed, And Mayor Girouette, panting, perspiring, waved above his head his hat with the tricolored cockade and frantically shouted—" Long life to the great Napoleon! Long life to the great Napoleon!" Up in the study, under the overturned table, among the broken glass little Fidele lay dead.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Paris At Last!

Hail to the Chief, who in triumph advances!
—Scott, Lady of the Lake.

HIS Majesty King Louis XVIII held many conferences during the early days of March, 1815, and he asked much advice from Generals, Ministers, Marshals and Princes. And some that he got was bad, some good, and some indifferent. But upon one occasion he heard a plain truth, and this was the nature of it. "M. Fouche," said His Majesty, "I know you are a man of great ability. Nobody knows France better than you, and no one ever conducted the police with greater vigor. Tell me, frankly, what is your opinion of the system of government I have followed?"

"My opinion, sire," replied Fouche, "is that Your Majesty, on coming to the government of France, ought not to have changed anything but the bed-linen of the Emperor." Unfortunately for himself, His Most Christian Majesty had changed that and much beside.

At eleven at night on the 19th of March the royal traveling-carriages rolled into the courtyard, and His Majesty left in haste the Tuileries Palace, where four days before he had sworn, in presence of the Senate, to die upon his throne. He did so in the

end, but through no merit of his own. As soon as the King had taken his departure, the servants in livery removed the portraits of the Bourbons from the private apartments, rolled the stout Louis's chair out of the Imperial study, stripped the fleurs-de-lis from the hangings in the Salle de Marechaux and replaced the bees; the National Guards in the Place du Carrousel tore off the white percale from their tricolored cockades; the Imperial chefs, chamberlains, ushers and valets donned their uniforms and resumed their places; Excelmans raised the tricolor above the Tuileries dome; the crowd in the courtyard shouted "Vive 1'Empereur!" and all was ready for triumphant Caesar.

There is a curious old house in Paris at No. 2 Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau. It is four stories high. Over the windows on the ground floor hangs the sign, "Vins, Liqueurs,"; over the windows on the second floor the sign, "Aux Petites Caves du Louvre," and over the windows on the third, in larger letters than the rest, "Hotel de Bernay." In this house, on the second floor, Jean Jacques Rousseau once lived and wrote, and so for him the street was named Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau. Well, on the 20th of March, 1815, this curious old house stood just as it stands to-day, save that it was not called "Hotel de Bernay," but Hotel de Marbette. It was a great resort for hussars and grenadiers, and as in Grenoble, if you had asked a soldier who it was who kept the best liqueurs, he would have told you Henri Jodelle at the Cafe Jodelle, so in Paris, if you had asked a dashing hussar or jack-booted cuirassier where the best drinks were to be had, he would have directed

you to the jolly host of the Hotel de Marbette. And a lively business was done by the Hotel de Marbette on the 20th of March, 1815. From morning till night the wine-room, on the ground floor, was filled to overflowing with veterans of the Grande Armee, all drinking, gesticulating and talking at once. And as may

be surmised, there was but one topic of conversation— the Emperor's landing at Cannes and his triumphal march to Paris.

There was terror in the Tuileries Palace, there was alarm in official circles, there was uneasiness in Paris and in many parts of France, there was dismay in Berlin, there was consternation in Vienna, but there was only joy in the Hotel de Marbette. The old veterans knew but one thing—the Little Corporal was coming back. With him they were everything; without him they were nothing. They had been reduced in pay, degraded in rank, politely spit upon and kicked out of doors by the royal government. Their deeds and their scars were forgotten, and they had been compelled to stand aside and see prance before them the scions of a defunct nobility, who looked at all the world through the "Hartwell telescope," and wore lightly on their embroidered breasts that cross of the Legion of Honor to earn which they had simply taken the trouble to breathe, and for which these scarred warriors had shed their blood at the Vistula, the Niemen, the Danube, the Elbe and the Rhine.

But now—wonder of wonders!—he was coming back again. Les journees de la gloire reveniraient! Once more the tricolor would wave, the sabres would flash, the trumpets would sound, the white horse would come galloping down the lines, and they would