"So the Emperor refuses my services! He forgets the victories of
Aboukir, Eylau, and Moscow?"

"No, sire; but he remembers the treaty of Naples, the taking of Reggio,
and the declaration of war of the viceroy of Italy."

The beggar struck his forehead.

"Yes, yes! I daresay he thinks I deserve his reproaches, and yet it
seems to me that he ought to remember that there are two men in me--the
soldier whom he made his brother, and the brother whom he made a king....
Yes, as brother I have treated him ill--very ill, but as king, upon my
soul, I could not have acted differently.... I had to choose between my
sword and my crown, and between a regiment and a people. Listen, Brune:
you do not know how it all happened. There was an English fleet, the
guns of which were growling in the port, there was a Neapolitan
population howling in the streets. If I had been alone, I would have
passed through the fleet with one boat, through the crowd with my sword
alone, but I had a wife and children. Yet I hesitated; the idea of being
called traitor and deserter caused me to shed more tears than the loss of
my throne, or perhaps the death of those I love best, will ever wring
from me.... And so he will have nothing more to do with me? He refuses
me as general, captain, private? Then what is left for me to do?"

"Sire, your Majesty must leave France immediately."

"And if I don't obey?"

"My orders are to arrest you and deliver you up to a court-martial!"