ore and more frightened every minute, cleaned her
frying-pan, put on her Sunday clothes, went to the justice, and told him
about the crime, which was brought to light, and the robbers were
broken on the wheel in proper style on the Market Place. This good work
accomplished, the woman and her husband always had the finest hemp
you ever set eyes on. Then, which pleased them still better, they had
something that they had wished for for a long time, to-wit, a man-child,
who in course of time became a great lord of the king's.

"That is the true story of _The Courageous Hunchback Woman_.

"I do not like stories of that sort; they make me dream at night," said
La Fosseuse. "Napoleon's adventures are much nicer, I think."

"Quite true," said the keeper. "Come now, M. Goguelat, tell us about the
Emperor."

"The evening is too far gone," said the postman, "and I do not care
about cutting short the story of a victory."

"Never mind, let us hear about it all the same! We know the stories, for
we have heard you tell them many a time; but it is always a pleasure to
hear them."

"Tell us about the Emperor!" cried several voices at once.

"You will have it?" answered Goguelat. "Very good, but you will see that
there is no sense in the story when it is gone through at a gallop.
I would rather tell you all about a single battle. Shall it be
Champ-Aubert, where we ran out of cartridges, and furbished them just
the same with the bayonet?"

"No, the Emperor! the Emperor!"

The old infantry man got up from his truss of hay and glanced round
about on those assembled, with the peculiar sombre expression in which
may be read all the miseries, adventures, and hardships of an old
soldier's career. He took his coat by the two skirts in front, and
raised them, as if it were a question of once more packing up the
knapsack in which his kit, his shoes, and all he had in the world used
to be stowed; for a moment he stood leaning all his weight on his left
foot, then he swung the right foot forward, and yielded with a good
grace to the wishes of his audience. He swept his gray hair to one side,
so as to leave his forehead bare, and flung back his head and gazed
upwards, as if to raise himself to the lofty height of the gigantic
story that he was about to tell.

"Napoleon, you see, my friends, was born in Corsica, which is a French
island warmed by the Italian sun; it is like a furnace there, everything
is scorched up, and they keep on killi