colour cockade, which had been removed on
the return of Louis XVIII.

At last the papers had to admit that Buonaparte had escaped from Elba.
What a scene it was in the cafe the night the papers arrived! M. Goulden
and I were hardly seated before the place was filled with people, and it
was so close the windows had to be opened.

Commandant Margarot mounted on a table with other officers all around
him, and began to read the "Gazette" aloud. It took a long time, the
reading, and the people laughed and jeered at the passages that said the
troops were faithful to the king, that Buonaparte was surrounded and
would soon be taken, and that the illustrious Ney and the other marshals
had hastened to place their swords at the service of the king. The
commandant read on firmly in that distinct voice of his until he came to
the order calling upon the French to seize Buonaparte and give him up
dead or alive.

Then his whole face changed and his eyes glittered. He took the
"Gazette" up and tore it into little pieces, and, drawing himself up,
his long arms stretched out, cried, "Vive l'Empereur!" with all his
might. Immediately all the half-pay officers took up the cry, and "Vive
l'Empereur!" was repeated again by the very soldiers posted outside the
town hall when they heard the shout.

The commandant was carried shoulder high round the cafe, and everyone
was now calling out, "Vive l'Empereur!" I saw the tears in the eyes of
the commandant, tears at hearing the name he loved best acclaimed once
more.

As for me, I felt as if cold water was being forced down my back. "It's
all over," I said to myself. "It's no good talking about peace."

But M. Goulden was more hopeful, and after we got home spoke cheerfully
of the blessings of liberty and a good constitution.

Aunt Gredel did not take this view. She came to see us the morning after
the scene in the cafe, when all the town was discussing the great news,
and began at once, "So it seems the villain has run away from his
island?"

Both M. Goulden and I were anxious to avoid a dispute, for Aunt Gredel
was really angry, and she couldn't leave the subject.

M. Goulden admitted that he preferred Napoleon to the Bourbons, with
their nobles and missionary priests, because the emperor was bound to
respect the national property, whereas the later would have destroyed
all that the Revolution had accomplished. "Still, I am now, and always
shall be till death, for the Republic and the r