"Whom can he mean?"

"I was talking of Minette, our _vivandière_."

"Dost wish I should make her my aide-de-camp?" said Napoleon, laughing.

"_Parbleu_! Thou hast more ill-favoured ones among them," said Pioche,
with a glance at the grim faces of Rapp and Daru. "I've seen the time
when thou'd have said, 'Is it Minette that was wounded at the Adige and
stood in the square at Marengo? I'll give her the Cross of the Legion!'"

"And she shall have it!" said Napoleon. Minette advanced, and as the
emperor's own cross was attached to her buttonhole she sat pale as
death, overcome by her pride.

For two hours waggon after waggon rolled on, filled with the shattered
remnants of an army. Every eye brightened as the emperor drew near, the
feeblest gazed with parted lips when he spoke, and the faint cry of
"_Vive l'Empéreur_" passed along the line.


_III.--Broken Dreams_


Ere I had left Paris to join in the campaign against Prussia, I had
made, and broken off, another dangerous friendship. In the _compagnie
d'élite_ was an officer named Duchesne who took a liking to me--a
royalist at heart, and a cynic who was unfailing in his sneers at all
the doings of Napoleon. His attitude was detected, and he was forced to