Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/335

Rh monsieur, to belong to the Old Guard, therefore I have heard to-day what you will all hear to-morrow. The Emperor has set his foot once more upon the soil of France. He has landed near Fréjus, in the Gulf of St. Juan."

"Then by this time he is a prisoner, if he is not shot, or hanged upon the nearest tree," said De Cranfort; while Emile sprang to his feet, and shouted, "Vive Napoléon!"

"If my grandson cannot behave at my table like a gentleman, I will thank him to leave it," said Madame de Salgues with a sternness that amazed every one, and was not without its effect upon Emile, who was accustomed to nothing from her but extreme indulgence.

Ivan, though his own thoughts were sufficiently sorrowful, felt a compassion for the boy, and a dread, not altogether groundless, of what he might be tempted to do if provoked. Turning to his hostess, near whom he sat, he said to her, unheard by the others, "Madame, I pray of you do not be hard with him. Do not let him leave us in this way. His exclamation was natural. I should certainly have done the same had I heard the Czar was coming."

Cranfort caught the last words, and said with petulance, "It is all his fault."

"Whose fault?" asked a quiet, elderly abbé, invited because Madame de Salgues thought no party perfect without a slight, a very slight ecclesiastical flavour.

"The fault of the Czar, M. l'Abbé," returned Cranfort, raising his voice, for the abbé sat at the other side of the table. "If the Corsican adventurer succeeds in erecting his standard once more, and torrents of blood are spilt, it will be the result of the imprudent generosity of the Emperor Alexander. No one can pretend that he was not warned. M. de Talleyrand and every man of sense knew that Elba was no place for Buonaparte. It was keeping a lighted candle at the door of the powder-magazine."

"It did not require the wit of Talleyrand to find that out,"