Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/333

Rh but the young gentleman who belongs to the Ecole Polytechnique."

"Surely I know you—surely I have seen you somewhere," said Henri, looking attentively at the bronzed, weather-beaten features of the old man.

The veteran shook his head. "You have the advantage of me, monsieur," he said.

But after another brief scrutiny a light flashed over the mind of Henri, reflecting itself in his face. He advanced cordially and took the soldier's bony hand in his. "Pierre Rougeard of the Old Guard," he said, "I am heartily glad to see you. I thought you were with the dead."

It was natural that the young conscript should remember the old Guardsman who had befriended him in his hour of need far better than the Guardsman could remember the conscript. Henri was greatly changed, while scarcely anything on this side of the grave could change the hard, weather-beaten features of Rougeard. He was obliged to recall the past to his recollection. "Never," said he, "did banquet seem so sweet to me as that repast of horse-flesh to which you bade me welcome by your bivouac fire on the Smolensko road. But we gave you up for lost that terrible day before we crossed the Beresina."

"I was made prisoner," Rougeard answered. "But I fell into good hands, and was kindly treated. At the Peace of Paris I came home with the rest—though it is home no longer without the Emperor," he added with a sigh.

"You must have much to tell," Henri rejoined; and as the valet passed through the hall, he said to him, "Alphonse, this is an old friend of mine who showed me much kindness while I was in Russia. Take the best care you can of him. By-and-by," he said to Rougeard, "we will finish our conversation."

He returned to the salon, and related what had passed to Madame de Salgues. That lady, with the characteristic love of a Frenchwoman for a little scene, must needs have the old