attribute the merit of it to myself, for in traveling the Emperor was
always very accessible.

When the good lady came to attend the audience with M. de Vouittemont, to
whom his municipal scarf gave the right of entrance, I happened to meet
them, and she stopped to thank me for the little service which she
insisted I had rendered her, and mentioned that she had been obliged to
pawn the six silver plates which alone remained to her, in order to pay
the expenses of her journey; that, having arrived at Troyes in a poor
farm wagon, covered with a cloth thrown over a hoop, and which had shaken
her terribly, she could find no place in the inns, all of which were
filled on account of the arrival of their Majesties; and she would have
been obliged to sleep in her wagon had it not been for the kind
consideration of M. de Vouittemont, who had given up his room to her, and
offered his services. In spite of her more than eighty years, and her
distress, this respectable lady related her story with an air of gentle
gayety, and at the close threw a grateful glance at her guide, on whose
arm she was leaning.

At that moment the usher came to announce that her turn had come, and she
entered the saloon of audience. M. de Vouittemont awaited her return
while conversing with me; and on her return she related to us, scarcely
able to control her emotion, that the Emperor had in the kindest manner
received the memorial she presented to him, had read it attentively, and
passed it to a minister who was near him, with the order to do her
justice this very day.

The next day she received the warrant for a pension of three thousand
francs, the first year's pay being handed her at once.