see that you are young!" Yes, she was young, she was loved, and she was
bored to death.

CHAPTER III

A DISCUSSION ON THE LITTLE CORPORAL

In the centre of the table flowers were disposed in a basket of gilded
bronze, decorated with eagles, stars, and bees, and handles formed like
horns of plenty. On its sides winged Victorys supported the branches of
candelabra. This centrepiece of the Empire style had been given by
Napoleon, in 1812, to Count Martin de l'Aisne, grandfather of the present
Count Martin-Belleme. Martin de l'Aisne, a deputy to the Legislative
Corps in 1809, was appointed the following year member of the Committee
on Finance, the assiduous and secret works of which suited his laborious
temperament. Although a Liberal, he pleased the Emperor by his
application and his exact honesty. For two years he was under a rain of
favors. In 1813 he formed part of the moderate majority which approved
the report in which Laine censured power and misfortune, by giving to the
Empire tardy advice. January 1, 1814, he went with his colleagues to the
Tuileries. The Emperor received them in a terrifying manner. He charged
on their ranks. Violent and sombre, in the horror of his present strength
and of his coming fall, he stunned them with his anger and his contempt.

He came and went through their lines, and suddenly took Count Martin by
the shoulders, shook him and dragged him, exclaiming: "A throne is four
pieces of wood covered with velvet? No! A throne is a man, and that man
is I. You have tried to throw mud at me. Is this the time to remonstrate
with me when there are two hundred thousand Cossacks at the frontiers?
Your Laine is a wicked man. One should wash one's dirty linen at home."
And while in his anger he twisted in his hand the embroidered collar of
the deputy, he said: "The people know me. They do not know you. I am the
elect of the nation. You are the obscure delegates of a department." He
predicted to them the fate of the Girondins. The noise of his spurs
accompanied the sound of his voice. Count Martin remained trembling the
rest of his life, and tremblingly recalled the Bourbons after the defeat
of the Emperor. The two restorations were in vain; the July government
and the Second Empire covered his oppressed breast with crosses and
cordons. Raised to the highest functions, loaded with honors by three
kings and one emperor, he felt forever on his shoulder the hand of the
Corsican. He died a senator