thought that some one had seen and followed us, in fact, that I had been robbed. This was a more crushing blow to me than the first, and I
foresaw the consequences with horror; what would be said, what would be thought, of me? Would my word be taken? The grand marshal, already prejudiced by the inexplicable reply of the Emperor, would consider me a person totally devoid of honor. I was overwhelmed by these fatal thoughts when Denis suggested to me that we had not dug in the right spot, and had made a mistake of some feet. I eagerly embraced this ray of hope; we began again to dig up the earth with more eagerness than ever, and I can say without exaggeration that my joy bordered almost on delirium when I saw the first of the bags. We drew out in succession all the five; and with the assistance of Denis I carried them to the palace, and placed them without delay in the hands of the grand marshal, with the keys of the Emperor's trunk, and the casket which M. Fain had committed to me. I said to him as I left, "Monseigneur, be good enough to say to his Majesty that I will not accompany him."--"I will tell him."
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.
This took place on the 19th of April, the most miserable day of my life.
What an evening, what a night I passed! What was my grief on learning the next day that the Emperor had departed at noon, after ****** his adieux to his guard! When I awoke that morning, all my resentment had been appeased in thinking of the Emperor. Twenty times I wished to return to the palace; twenty times after his departure I wished to take post horses and overtake him; but I was deterred by the offer he had made me through M. Hubert. "Perhaps," I thought, "he will think it is the money which influences me; this will, doubtless, be said by those around him; and what an opinion he will have of me!" In this cruel perplexity I
did not dare to decide. I suffered all that it is possible for a man to suffer; and, at times, that which was only too true seemed like a dream to me, so impossible did it seem that I could be where the Emperor was not. Everything in this terrible situation contributed to aggravate my distress. I knew the Emperor well enough to be aware that even had I
returned to him then, he would never have forgotten that I had wished to leave him; I felt that I had not the strength to bear this reproach from his lips. On the other side, the physical suffering caused by my disease had greatly increased, and I was compelled to remain in bed a long while.
I could, indeed, have triumphed over these physical sufferings however cruel they might have been, but in the frightful complications of my position I was reduced to a condition of idiocy; I saw nothing of what was around me; I heard nothing of what was said; and after this statement the reader will surely not expect that I shall have anything to say about the farewell of the Emperor to his old and faithful guard, an account of which, moreover, has been often enough published for the facts to be well known concerning this event, which, besides, took place in public. Here my Memoirs might well close; but the reader, I well believe, cannot refuse me his attention a few moments longer, that I may recall some facts which I have a right to explain, and to relate some incidents concerning the return from the Island of Elba. I, therefore, now continue my remarks on the first of these heads, and the second will be the subject of the next chapter.
