e wore a general's
uniform and carried an overcoat across his arm, although the sun was
very hot. He was followed by a servant bearing a camp stool. He did not
look to me like a well man; ah no, far from it; his stooping form,
the sallowness of his complexion, the feebleness of his movements, all
indicated him to be in a very bad way. I was not surprised, for the
druggist at Mouzon, when he recommended me to drive on to Baybel,
told me that an aide-de-camp had just been in his shop to get some
medicine--you understand what I mean, medicine for--" The presence of
his wife and mother prevented him from alluding more explicitly to the
nature of the Emperor's complaint, which was an obstinate diarrhea
that he had contracted at Chene and which compelled him to make those
frequent halts at houses along the road. "Well, then, the attendant
opened the camp stool and placed it in the shade of a clump of trees at
the edge of a field of wheat, and the Emperor sat down on it. Sitting
there in a limp, dejected attitude, perfectly still, he looked for all
the world like a small shopkeeper taking a sun bath for his rheumatism.
His dull eyes wandered over the wide horizon, the Meuse coursing through
the valley at his feet, before him the range of wooded heights whose
summits recede and are lost in the distance, on the left the waving
tree-tops of Dieulet forest, on the right the verdure-clad eminence of
Sommanthe. He was surrounded by his military family, aides and officers
of rank, and a colonel of dragoons, who had already applied to me for
information about the country, had just motioned me not to go away, when
all at once--" Delaherche rose from his chair, for he had reached the
point where the dramatic interest of his story culminated and it became
necessary to re-enforce words by gestures. "All at once there is a
succession of sharp reports and right in front of us, over the wood of
Dieulet, shells are seen circling through the air. It produced on me no
more effect than a display of fireworks in broad daylight, sir, upon my
word it didn't! The people about the Emperor, of course, showed a good
deal of agitation and uneasiness. The colonel of dragoons comes running
up again to ask if I can give them an idea whence the firing proceeds.
I answer him off-hand: 'It is at Beaumont; there is not the slightest
doubt about it.' He returns to the Emperor, on whose knees an
aide-de-camp was unfolding a map. The Emperor was evidently of opinio