e Boissy," he said, "the Chamber requests that
you will confine yourself to the question under discussion. It has saved
me the trouble of asking you to do so." ("Our colleague might as well
have said 'spared me!'" I whispered to Lebrun.)

"I am delighted on your account, Monsieur the Chancellor," replied M. de
Boissy, and the Chamber laughed.

A few minutes later, however, the Chancellor took his revenge. M. de
Boissy had floundered into some quibble about the rules. It was late.
The Chamber was becoming impatient.

"Had you not raised an unnecessary incident," observed the Chancellor,
"you would have finished your speech a long time ago, to your own
satisfaction and that of everybody else."

Whereat everybody laughed.

"Don't laugh!" exclaimed the Duke de Mortemart. "Laughter diminishes the
prestige of a constituted body."

M. de Pontecoulant said: "M. de Boissy teases Monsieur the Chancellor,
Monsieur the Chancellor torments M. de Boissy. There is a lack of
dignity on both sides!"

During the session the Duke de Mortemart came to my bench and we spoke
about the Emperor. M. de Mortemart went through all the great wars.
He speaks nobly of him. He was one of the Emperor's orderlies in the
Campaign of 1812.

"It was during that campaign that I learned to know the Emperor," he
said. "I was near him night and day. I saw him shave himself in the
morning, sponge his chin, pull on his boots, pinch his valet's ear, chat
with the grenadier mounting guard over his tent, laugh, gossip,
make trivial remarks, and amid all this issue orders, trace plans,
interrogate prisoners, decree, determine, decide, in a sovereign manner,
simply, unerringly, in a few minutes, without missing anything, without
losing a useful detail or a second of necessary time. In this intimate
and familiar life of the bivouac flashes of his intellect were seen
every moment. You can believe me when I say that he belied the proverb:
'No man is great in the eyes of his valet.'"

"Monsieur the Duke," said I, "that proverb is wrong. Every great man is
a great man in the eyes of his valet."

At this session the Duke d'Aumale, having attained his twenty-fifth
birthday, took his seat for the first time. The Duke de Nemours and the
Prince de Joinville were seated near him in their usual places behind
the ministerial bench. They were not among those who laughed the least.

The Duke de Nemours, being the youngest member of his committee,
fulfilled the functi