Napoleon, and Liberty vanished from before him. But he roamed on,
ever looking for her, and at length he found her lying dead in the public
way, all gashed and bleeding, and trampled with the feet of men and horses,
and the wheel of a tumbril was over her neck. And Napoleon, under
compulsion of the mob, ascended the tumbril; and Abbe Sieyes and Bishop
Talleyrand rode at his side, administering spiritual consolation. Thus they
came within sight of the guillotine, whereon stood M. de Robespierre in his
sky-blue coat, and his jaw bound up in a bloody cloth, bowing and smiling,
nevertheless, and beckoning Napoleon to ascend to him. Napoleon had never
feared the face of man; but when he saw M. de Robespierre great dread fell
upon him, and he leapt out of the tumbril, and fled amain, passing amid the
people as it were mid withered leaves, until he came where Loyalty stood
awaiting him.

She took his hand in hers, and, lo! another great host of people proffering
him a crown, save one little old man, who alone of them all wore his hair
in a queue with powder.

"See," said the little old man, "that thou takest not what doth not belong
to thee."

"To whom belongeth it then?" asked Napoleon, "for I am a plain soldier, and
have no skill in politics."

"To Louis the Disesteemed," said the little old man, "for he is a
great-great-nephew of the Princess of Schwoffingen, whose ancestors reigned
here at the flood."

"Where dwells Louis the Disesteemed?" asked Napoleon.

"In England," said the little old man.

Napoleon therefore repaired to England, and sought for Louis the
Disesteemed. But none could direct him, save that it behoved him to seek in
the obscurest places. And one day, as he was passing through a mean street,
he heard a voice of lamentation, and perceived a man whose coat and shirt
were rent and dirty; but not so his pantaloons, for he had none.

"Who art thou, thou pantaloonless one?" asked he, "and wherefore makest
thou this lamentation?"

"I am Louis the Esteemed, King of France and Navarre," replied the
distrousered personage, "and I lament for my pantaloons, which I have been
enforced to pawn, inasmuch as the broker would advance nothing upon my coat
or my shirt."

And Napoleon went upon his knees and divested himself of his own nether
garments, and arrayed the king therein, to the great diversion of those who
stood about.

"Thou hast done wickedly," said the king when he heard who Napoleon was,
"in tha