After this cold and laconic reply I immediately left the palace, and was
soon after in Rue du Coq-Gris, with M. Clement, a bailiff, who for a long
time had been charged with my small affairs, and had given the necessary
attention to my farm during the long absences which the journeys and
campaigns of the Emperor necessitated. Then I gave full vent to my
despair. I was choking with rage as I remembered that my honesty had
been suspected,--I, who for fourteen years had served the Emperor with a
disinterestedness which was so scrupulous, and even carried to such a
point that many persons called it silliness; I, who had never demanded
anything of the Emperor, either for myself or my people! My brain reeled
as I tried to explain to myself how the Emperor, who knew all this so
well, could have allowed me to appear to a third person as a dishonorable
man; the more I thought of it the more extreme became my irritation, and
yet it was not possible to find the shadow of a motive for the blow aimed
at me. My despair was at its height, when M. Hubert, ordinary valet de
chambre of the Emperor, came to tell me that his Majesty would give me
all I wished if I would follow him, and that three hundred thousand
francs would be immediately handed me. In these circumstances, I ask of
all honest men, what could I do, and what would they have done in my
place? I replied that when I had resolved to consecrate my whole life to
the service of the unfortunate Emperor, it was not from views of vile
interest; but I was in despair at the thought that he should have made me
appear before Count Bertrand as an impostor and a dishonest man. Ah!
how happy would it then have been for me had the Emperor never thought of
giving me those accursed one hundred thousand francs! These ideas
tortured me. Ah! if I could only have taken twenty-four hours for
reflection, however just might have been my resentment, how gladly would
I have sacrificed it! I would have thought of the Emperor alone, and
would have followed him; but a sad and inexplicable fatality had not
decreed this.