ore them had known it, and rarely an evening passed that
some of the gamins were not to be found in the old man's kitchen,
which was also his parlor, or else on his little porch, listening with
ever-new delight to the story of his battles and of the emperor. They
all knew as well as he the thrilling part where the emperor dashed by
(the old Sergeant always rose reverently at the name, and the little
audience also stood,--one or two nervous younger ones sometimes bobbing
up a little ahead of time, but sitting down again in confusion under
the contemptuous scowls and pluckings of the rest),--where the emperor
dashed by, and reined up to ask an officer what regiment that was
that had broken, and who was that drummer that had been promoted
to ensign;--they all knew how, on the grand review afterwards, the
Sergeant, beating his drum with one hand (while the other, which had
been broken by a bullet, was in a sling), had ma-
rched with his company
before the emperor, and had been recognized by him. They knew how he had
been called up by a staff-officer (whom the children imagined to be
a fine gentleman with a rich uniform, and a great shako like Marie's
uncle, the drum-major), and how the emperor had taken from his own
breast and with his own hand had given him the cross, which he had never
from that day removed from his heart, and had said, "I would make you a
colonel if I could spare you."
This was the story they liked best, though there were many others which
they frequently begged to be told--of march and siege and battle, of
victories over or escapes from red-coated Britishers and fierce German
lancers, and of how the mere presence of the emperor was worth fifty
thousand men, and how the soldiers knew that where he was no enemy could
withstand them. It all seemed to them very long ago, and the soldier of
the empire was the only man-