e educated?"

"I was a student at your majesty's Military College," answered the
young man.

"Did you finish there?"

"I finished in your majesty's army last year."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-two, Sire."

"You belong to the foot, but you can ride?"

"Anything."

"Marshal Berthier will give you horses. I shall be at Sezanne the day
after to-morrow night. You will have news for me then?"

"Or be dead, Sire."

"I have no use for dead men. Don't get yourself taken. Any fool can
die, or be made prisoner. It is a wise man who can live for me and
France."

"I shall live," said the young man simply. "Have you any further
command, Sire?"

"None."

The hand of Marteau was raised in salute.

"Stop," said the Emperor, as the soldier turned to the door.

"Sire?"

"Come back with news, and let us but escape from this tightening coil,
and you shall be a lieutenant colonel in my guard."

"I will do it for love of your majesty alone," cried the soldier,
turning away.

It was not nearly dawn before Berthier and Maret, who had been
pondering over the dispatch to Caulaincourt, who was fighting the
envoys of the allies at the Congress at Chatillon, ventured to intrude
upon the Emperor. Having come to his decision, as announced to the
young soldier, who had got his horses and his comrade and gone, the
Emperor, with that supreme command of himself which few men possessed,
had at last got a few hours of rest. He had dressed himself with the
assistance of his faithful valet, Constant, who had given him a bath
and shaved him, and he now confronted the two astonished marshals with
an air serene--even cheerful.

"Dispatches!" he said, as they approached him. "It is a question of a
very different matter. Tell Caulaincourt to prolong the negotiations,
but to concede nothing, to commit me to nothing. I am going to beat
Bluecher. If I succeed, the state of affairs will entirely change, and
we shall see what we shall see. Tell Marmont to give orders for his
corps to march immediately after they get some breakfast. No, they may
not wait till morning. Fortune has given the Prussians into my hands.
Write to my brother in Paris; tell him that he may expect news from us
of the most important character in forty-eight hours. Let the
Parisians continue their misereres and their forty-hour-long prayers
for the present. We'll soon give them something else to think of."

"But, Sire----" feebly interposed Berthier.