That
is all I know, except that my brother died shortly before the empire
was proclaimed, and papa and mamma came to our country-place here,
where I was born. Rene's--my brother's--death had something to do
with my father's hatred of the empire, I know that. But papa will
never speak of it to me, except to tell me that I must always
remember that the Emperor has been the curse of the De Nesvilles.
Hark! Hear the troops passing. Why do they never cheer their
Emperor?"

"They cheered him at Saarbrueck--I heard them. You are not eating;
are you tired?"

"A little. I shall go with Marianne, I think; I am sleepy. Are
you going to sit up? Do you think we can sleep with the noise of
the horses passing? I should like to see the Emperor at table."

"Wait," said Jack; "I'll go down and find out whether we can't
slip into the ballroom."

"Then I'll go too," said Lorraine, rising. "Marianne, stay here;
I will return in a moment;" and she slipped after Jack, down the
broad staircase and out to the terrace, where a huge cuirassier
officer stood in the moonlight, his straight sabre shimmering,
his white mantle open over the silver breastplate.

The ballroom was brilliantly lighted, the gilded canapes and
chairs were covered with officers in every conceivable uniform,
lounging, sprawling, chatting, and gesticulating, or pulling
papers and maps over the floor. A general traced routes across
the map at his feet with the point of a naked sword; an officer
of dragoons, squatting on his haunches, followed the movement of
the sword-point and chewed an unlighted cigarette. Officers were
coming and going constantly, entering by the hallway and leaving
through the door-like windows that swung open to the floor. The
sinister face of a police-spy peered into the conservatory at
intervals, where a slender, pale-faced boy sat, clothed in a
colonel's uniform, writing on a carved table. It was the Prince
Imperial, back from Saarbrueck and his "baptism of fire," back
also from the Spicheren and the disaster of Woerth. He was writing
to his mother, that unhappy, anxious woman who looked every day
from the Tuileries into the streets of a city already clamorous,
already sullenly suspicious of its Emperor and Empress.

The boy's face was beautiful. He raised his head and sat silently
biting his pen, eyes wandering. Perhaps he was listening to the
retreat of Frossard's Corps through the fair province of
Lorraine--a province that he should never l