"Your Bastia, my good Clement," he said to the host, who invariably came
to the dining-room with the roast and solicited the opinion of each guest
upon the dinner in a few tactful, easy words--"your Bastia is a sad
place."

This evening Colonel Gilbert was in a less talkative mood than usual, and
exchanged only a nod with his artillery colleagues as he passed to his
own small table. He opened his newspaper, and became interested in it at
once. It was several days old, and had come by way of Nice and Ajaccio
from Paris. All France was at this time eager for news, and every
Frenchman studied the journal of his choice with that uneasiness which
seems to foreshadow in men's hearts the approach of any great event. For
this was the spring of 1870, when France, under the hitherto iron rule of
her adventurer emperor, suddenly began to plunge and rear, while the
nations stood around her wondering who should receive the first kick. The
emperor was ill; the cheaper journals were already talking of his
funeral. He was uneasy and restless, turning those dull eyes hither
and thither over Europe--a man of inscrutable face and deep hidden
plans--perhaps the greatest adventurer who ever sat a throne. Condemned
by a French Court of Peers in 1840 to imprisonment for life, he went to
Ham with the quiet question, "But how long does perpetuity last in
France?" And eight years later he was absolute master of the country.

Corsica in particular was watching events, for Corsica was cowed. She had
come under the rule of this despot, and for the first time in her history
had found her master. Instead of being numbered by hundreds, as they were
before and are again now at the end of the century, the outlaws hiding in
the mountains scarce exceeded a score. The elections were conducted more
honestly than had ever been before, and the Continental newspapers spoke
hopefully of the dawn of civilization showing itself among a people who