on from the direction of St. Roch; and in the quiet I
saw a little soldier alight at the Rue de Rivoli gate--a little man whom
you might mistake for a corporal of the guard--with a wild,
coarse-featured Corsican (say, rather, Basque) face, his disordered
chestnut hair darkened to black locks by the use of pomatum--a face
selfish and false, but determined as fate. So this was the beginning of
the Napoleon "legend"; and by-and-by this coarse head will be idealized
into the Roman Emperor type, in which I myself might have believed but
for the revelations of the night of strange adventure.

What is history? What is this drama and spectacle, that has been put
forth as history, but a cover for petty intrigue, and deceit, and
selfishness, and cruelty? A man shut into the Tuileries Garden begins to
think that it is all an illusion, the trick of a disordered fancy. Who
was Grand, who was Well-Beloved, who was Desired, who was the Idol of the
French, who was worthy to be called a King of the Citizens? Oh, for the
light of day!

And it came, faint and tremulous, touching the terraces of the palace and
the Column of Luxor. But what procession was that moving along the
southern terrace? A squad of the National Guard on horseback, a score or
so of King's officers, a King on foot, walking with uncertain step, a
Queen leaning on his arm, both habited in black, moved out of the western
gate. The King and the Queen paused a moment on the very spot where Louis
XVI. was beheaded, and then got into a carriage drawn by one horse and
were driven rapidly along the quays in the direction of St. Cloud. And
again Revolution, on the heels of the fugitives, poured into the old
palace and filled it with its tatterdemalions.

Enough for me that daylight began to broaden. "Sleep on," I said, "O real
President, real Emperor (by the grace of coup d'etat) at last, in the
midst of the most virtuous court in Europe, loved of good Americans,
eternally established in the hearts of your devoted Parisians! Peace to
the palace and peace to its lovely garden, of both of which I have had
quite enough for one night!"

The sun came up, and, as I looked about, all the shades and concourse of
the night had vanished. Day had begun in the vast city, with all its roar
and tumult; but the garden gates would not open till seven, and I must
not be seen before the early stragglers should enter and give me a chance
of escape. In my circumstances I would rather be the firs