ring, instead of putting their own hands in the dough. Well,
that's how it happened that our armies were beaten, and the frontiers of
France were encroached upon: THE MAN was nor there. Now observe, I say
_man_ because that's what they called him; but 'twas nonsense, for he
had a star and all its belongings; it was we who were only men. He
taught history to France after his famous battle of Aboukir, where,
without losing more than three hundred men, and with a single division,
he vanquished the grand army of the Turk, seventy-five thousand strong,
and hustled more than half of it into the sea, r-r-rah!

"That was his last thunder-clap in Egypt. He said to himself, seeing the
way things were going in Paris, 'I am the saviour of France; I know it,
and I must go.' But, understand me, the army didn't know he was going,
or they'd have kept him by force and made him Emperor of the East. So
now we were sad; for He was gone who was all our joy. He left the
command to Kleber, a big mastiff, who came off duty at Cairo,
assassinated by an Egyptian, whom they put to death by empaling him on a
bayonet; that's the way they guillotine people down there. But it makes
'em suffer so much that a soldier had pity on the criminal and gave him
his canteen; and then, as soon as the Egyptian had drunk his fill, he
gave up the ghost with all the pleasure in life. But that's a trifle we
couldn't laugh at then. Napoleon embarked in a cockleshell, a little
skiff that was nothing at all, though 'twas called 'Fortune;' and in a
twinkling, under the nose of England, who was blockading him with ships
of the line, frigates, and anything that could hoist a sail, he crossed
over, and there he was in France. For he always had the power, mind you,
of crossing the seas at one straddle.

"Was that a human man? Bah!

"So, one minute he is at Frejus, the next in Paris. There, they all
adore him; but he summons the government. 'What have you done with my
children, the soldiers?' he says to the lawyers. 'You're a mob of
rascally scribblers; you are making France a mess of pottage, and
snapping your fingers at what people think of you. It won't do; and I
speak the opinion of everybody.' So, on that, they wanted to battle
with him and kill him--click! he had 'em locked up in barracks, or
flying out of windows, or drafted among his followers, where they were
as mute as fishes and as pliable as a quid of tobacco. After that
stroke--consul! And then, as it was not