Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/425

Rh with the choicest tobacco. Ivan seated himself by the fire, and the friends talked together of many things; nor was their communion hindered by the fact that each had a secret care in his heart. Some things were said, or hinted, by Emile which Ivan rejoiced to hear. It soon became evident that the man was not the scoffing sceptic the lad had been: Ivan's words of counsel had gone home to his heart and been the means of keeping him from those "paths of the destroyer" into which there was once terrible danger his feet might wander.

After many other subjects had been discussed, Emile observed, "I am curious to know what you have been doing with the Army of Occupation, since its return from France."

"It is difficult to know what to do with it," Ivan admitted candidly. "Our enormous military forces threaten to become a perplexity, now that a European peace, which God grant may be enduring, renders them superfluous."

"I should think that army of yours something worse than a perplexity," said Emile laying aside his pipe, "at least to the Czar." His tone was so ominous that Ivan looked at him anxiously.

"I knew in Paris many of your countrymen, 'Messieurs les officiers russe' we used to call them," Emile resumed after a pause. "You remember, Prince Ivan, what an ardent Imperialist I used to be; and I think still that the exile of St. Helena would make a better ruler for France than any effete Bourbon or Orleans of them all. I should have plunged madly into the wildest intrigues of the secret societies of Paris had not a decanter of poisoned wine stopped me at the beginning."

"Poisoned wine, Emile? Oh yes—I remember."

"But do you remember the lecture you read me with that poisoned wine for a text?—To use assassination as a weapon against political foes is abominable, and all those who do so are