nch cavalry. My word, he was a
frightened man when he understood how near he had been to killing the
celebrated Brigadier Gerard.

Well, the road was clear, and about three o'clock in the afternoon I was
at St Denis, though it took me a long two hours to get from there to
Paris, for the road was blocked with commissariat waggons and guns of
the artillery reserve, which was going north to Marmont and Mortier. You
cannot conceive the excitement which my appearance in such a costume
made in Paris, and when I came to the Rue de Rivoli I should think I had
a quarter of a mile of folk riding or running behind me. Word had got
about from the dragoons (two of whom had come with me), and everybody
knew about my adventures and how I had come by my uniform. It was a
triumph--men shouting and women waving their handkerchiefs and blowing
kisses from the windows.

Although I am a man singularly free from conceit, still I must confess
that, on this one occasion, I could not restrain myself from showing
that this reception gratified me. The Russian's coat had hung very loose
upon me, but now I threw out my chest until it was as tight as a
sausage-skin. And my little sweetheart of a mare tossed her mane and
pawed with her front hoofs, frisking her tail about as though she said,
'We've done it together this time. It is to us that commissions should
be intrusted.' When I kissed her between the nostrils as I dismounted at
the gate of the Tuileries, there was as much shouting as if a bulletin
had been read from the Grand Army.

I was hardly in costume to visit a King; but, after all, if one has a
soldierly figure one can do without all that. I was shown up straight
away to Joseph, whom I had often seen in Spain. He seemed as stout, as
quiet, and as amiable as ever. Talleyrand was in the room with him, or I
suppose I should call him the Duke of Benevento, but I confess that I
like old names best. He read my letter when Joseph Buonaparte handed it
to him, and then he looked at me with the strangest expression in those
funny little, twinkling eyes of his.

'Were you the only messenger?' he asked.

'There was one other, sir,' said I. 'Major Charpentier, of the Horse
Grenadiers.'

'He has not yet arrived,' said the King of Spain.

'If you had seen the legs of his horse, sire, you would not wonder at
it,' I remarked.

'There may be other reasons,' said Talleyrand, and he gave that singular
smile of his.

Well, they paid me a complimen