e drubs them soundly, cribs
ten thousand of their men at a time by surrounding them with fifteen
hundred Frenchmen, whom he makes to spring up after his fashion, and at
last he takes their cannon, victuals, money, ammunition, and everything
they have that is worth taking; he pitches them into the water, beats
them on the mountains, snaps at them in the air, gobbles them up on the
earth, and thrashes them everywhere.

There are the troops in full feather again! For, look you, the Emperor
(who, for that matter, was a wit) soon sent for the inhabitant, and told
him that he had come there to deliver him. Whereupon the civilian finds
us free quarters and makes much of us, so do the women, who showed great
discernment. To come to a final end; in Ventose '96, which was at that
time what the month of March is now, we had been driven up into a corner
of the _Pays des Marmottes_; but after the campaign, lo and behold! we
were the masters of Italy, just as Napoleon had prophesied. And in the
month of March following, in one year and in two campaigns, he brings
us within sight of Vienna; we had made a clean sweep of them. We had
gobbled down three armies one after another, and taken the conceit out
of four Austrian generals; one of them, an old man who had white hair,
had been roasted like a rat in the straw before Mantua. The kings were
suing for mercy on their knees. Peace had been won. Could a mere mortal
have done that? No. God helped him, that is certain. He distributed
himself about like the five loaves in the Gospel, commanded on the
battlefield all day, and drew up his plans at night. The sentries always
saw him coming; he neither ate nor slept. Therefore, recognizing these
prodigies, the soldier adopts him for his father. But, forward!

The other folk there in Paris, seeing all this, say among themselves:

"Here is a pilgrim who appears to take his instructions from Heaven
above; he is uncommonly likely to lay a hand on France. We must let him
loose on Asia or America, and that, perhaps, will keep him quiet."

The same thing was decreed for him as for Jesus Christ; for, as a matter
of fact, they give him orders to go on duty down in Egypt. See his
resemblance to the Son of God! That is not all, though. He calls all his
fire-eaters about him, all those into whom he had more particularly put
the devil, and talks to them in this way:

"My friends, for the time being they are giving us Egypt to stop our
mouths. But we will