form of officers of the National Guard and
wearing enormous tricolour cockades as large as soup-plates on their
shakos, are seen to arrive at a break-neck gallop down the pass from
Grenoble.

St. Genis recognised them at a glance: they were Victor de Marmont,
Surgeon-Captain Emery and their friend the glovemaker, Dumoulin. The
next moment these three men were at the feet of their beloved hero.

"Sire," said Dumoulin the glovemaker, "in the name of the citizens of
Grenoble we hereby offer you our services and one hundred thousand
francs collected in the last twenty-four hours for your use."

"I accept both," replied the Emperor, while he grasped vigorously the
hands of his three most devoted friends.

St. Genis uttered a loud and comprehensive curse: then he pulled his
horse abruptly round and with such a jerk that it reared and plunged
madly forward ere it started galloping away with its frantic rider in
the direction of Grenoble.

III

And Grenoble itself was in a turmoil.

In the barracks the cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" were incessant; General
Marchand was indefatigable in his efforts to still that cry, to rouse in
the hearts of the soldiers a sense of loyalty to the King.

"Your country and your King," he shouted from barrack-room to
barrack-room.

"Our country and our Emperor!" responded the soldiers with ever-growing
enthusiasm.

The spirit of the army and of the people were Bonapartist to the core.
They had never trusted either Marchand or prefet Fourier, who had turned
their coats so readily at the Restoration: they hated the emigres--the
Comte de Cambray, the Vicomte de St. Genis, the Duc d'Embrun--with their
old-fashioned ideas of the semi-divine rights of the nobility second
only to the godlike ones of the King. They thought them arrogant and
untamed, over-ready to grab once more all the privileges which a bloody
Revolution had swept away.

To them Napoleon, despite the brilliant days of the Empire, despite his
autocracy, his militarism and his arrogance, represented "the people,"
the advanced spirit of the Revolution; his downfall had meant a return
to the old regime--the regime of feudal rights, of farmers general, of
heavy taxation and dear bread.

"Vive l'Empereur!" was cried in the barracks and "Vive l'Empereur!" at
the street corners.

A squadron of Hussars had marched into Grenoble from Vienne just before
noon: the same squadron which a few months ago at a revue by the Comte
d'Artois