"See what you can do then. I cannot sway him. You know what he is when his mind is made up."

All that day it seemed that vehicles were to come from Paris to disturb the calm of a peaceful Sunday and to prevent a conqueror from making scarlet history. Finally, in disgust, Napoleon shut himself in upstairs. Letizia, like Lucien, had already packed and left Paris; but she determined once more to plead with her son. This blood he would shed must not be on his hands.

Age had at last taken toll of Letizia. The iron-gray had come into the chestnut as the iron entered her soul. And though she was only fifty-four and promised to live to a hale old age if worry over her turbulent family did not kill her, her figure had harshened a little, and she sat bolt upright against the carriage seat, no longer the Roman matron with the rose complexion, but an austere, eagle-eyed, worldly-wise woman just beginning to show her age.

A short distance this side of Malmaison, she saw a rider, black against the sunset gold, slightly rising and falling in the rhythmic measures of a gallop. He reined in as he reached them at a fork of the highway, and, pointing with his riding-whip, called, "Take the other road!" Then, catching a glimpse of a lady behind the drawn shades, he bowed low and galloped on. In passing, Letizia was sure she recognized the strange young man with whom she had talked at Ajaccio long ago, and later at Montebello; but it was too late to call him back.

The granite of her sterling common sense had always been shot through with mica specks of eery supersti

tions; and immediately she lost sight of the practical reason, the heavy rains, that might have prompted the warning. She saw in his luminous features those of a supernatural messenger and, in his words, “Take the other road!"-so reminiscent of their old conversations—an admonition which she must convey, as though from heaven, to her son.

When her carriage drove under the port-cochère, Josephine shrank from greeting her mother-in-law. Still, she had force, this old lady. Perhaps she might influence her son. So, "You are welcome,” she said.

"Thanks, Madame la Première Consul. Have you heard of this thing?"

"I have," returned her daughter-inlaw sadly. "But no argument seems of any weight. Still, if you wish to see him, you will find him upstairs."

Not for worlds would Josephine now have knocked at that closed door. Letizia, however, did not falter, and when to his "Who is there?" she had answered "Your mother," she took his silence for assent and entered the room, finding him deep in his chair between walls lined with books, a bust of Cæsar on his desk, and ink-spots on the floor where he had flicked his pen. There were no lights in the room, save the twilight, and his eyes, she thought, were more deeply brooding than she had ever seen them before. At once she recalled that evening at Montebello when she had thought from his expression that he was doing violence to something deep within. And all he said now was, rather harshly, "You are welcome, sigñora, provided, like all women, you do not come to interfere."

"Seven years ago, my son," she said, taking the seat which in his moody detachment he did not offer, "I interfered, as I said, for the last time. To-night I break that promise. I am your mother and cannot stand silent while you do this thing. It means that you invite your downfall; that you will bear the curse of the whole world to your grave!"

Involuntarily he twitched at this as if she had hit on a hidden nerve of fear. Then, controlling himself, he turned.

"Seven years ago too I tried to explain things to you, though matters of State are not in a woman's province. I shall try once more. Attend!

"You remember the attempt on my life in the Rue Sainte Nicaise? Very well. Did you know that there have been many attempts since? Quite right. These I thwarted; but I cannot thwart them forever. The Comte d'Artois, for one, has sixty assassins in Paris. Would you see your son murdered?"

It was difficult, the way he put it, and it was only a very thin surface of austerity that hid the mother's tenderness. Nevertheless she swered intrepidly:

"I would die for you, my son; but I would rather see you assassinated than an assassin yourself." For the moment she seemed crushed, then"Surely there is some other way."

"There is no other way. I wish there were." He paused, thinking of another wakeful night by the sands of an Eastern sea. "I shall be damned for this as I was at Joppa and I shall be ruined if I weaken. But listen again: The King of England has his spies in France. On the

West coast the Duc de Berri has landed. Among them they have hatched a neat plot. I am to be kidnapped, they say, polite word for murder. murder. But I have matched their craft with craft. La Touché palmed himself off as my foe and joined the conspirators. He has secured papers they lie before me. And some of the generals, Moreau, Pichegru, are in the plot. So here I am, a ring of spies and traitors in Paris ready to spring the trap, de Berri already landed, and the Duc d'Enghien on the Rhine border eager to cross. So I forestall them and seize the duke. No longer will they dare to lay a hand on me. I shall strike terror to their hearts by his death. Thus perish, they will see, all the enemies of Napoleon!"

For a few swift seconds Letizia gazed on him. He was so little like the man she remembered, so indifferent then to his security, actually chafing at the guards his friends advised as a reasonable precaution. And his generals who thought they knew him well would have been amazed to see him sunk in this melancholy, though twice before it had attacked him-once in his adolescence when he had pondered on suicide, again in Italy when in a rage at his generals he had told them to take over the command and do better. Even Achilles could sulk in his tent. But this was the third and the most serious attack.

At last his mother spoke with such measured words that each seemed uttered out of a deep agony.

"But this duke is nothing but a boy. You are flesh of my flesh, Napoleon, and to say it, strikes me to the heart; but I am afraid your

"Who has suggested that, madame?"

my son.

"All Paris says it; and I can read you, my son."

“And if I am not crowned, what other course is there? They call us upstarts, nouveaux riches. You yourself should resent that, madame, as a Ramolino if not a Bonaparte. As long as I am consul only, they will conspire against my life. If I become emperor, with a dynasty established, they will recognize us at last and cease plotting to restore the Bourbons. It means security for France. If I fall, she will be helpless."

"Oh, my son, do you not count too much on yourself. God can raise up others."

"He has not appeared to," he returned dryly and a little scornfully. "But can you not see? If you are content to reign as First Consul, a republican ruler, a just and enlightened one, your name will go down to be blessed for all generations. Already you have glory and achievements enough. It may be cursed-"

"It is good of you to prophesy, signora," he retorted sarcastically.

"I do not prophesy," she began; but even as she spoke, the bust of Cæsar, dislodged by some sudden movement of Napoleon, dropped to the floor to be shattered in pieces. It was the slightest of accidents, of course, but it did not lighten the mood of either of the Corsicans. They stared at the shards, then rapidly she went on:

"Oh, you must not tempt fate by accepting the crown or killing this

She rose and for a few heart-beats stood in the gathering gloom, tall and as unyielding as her son, her dark gown so lost in the shadows that he could see nothing of her but her white face and pleading eyes.

"Farewell," she said at last. "I go to Italy to-morrow." "With Lucien ?" She nodded assent.

So bitter was he now at what he inwardly termed her defection, that he turned away.

She took one or two steps toward him, paused, then turned also and glided so softly out of the door that he did not know she had gone.

At six next day, the bells of the neighboring church broke on the morning air. He had been quite cynical at times about religion, professing it to be good for society, since it contented the poor, through immortal hope, with the present good fortunes of the rich. Again he had defended even orthodoxy quite warmly. The recent cynicisms may have been due to a love of argument, or they may have been proof of a growing materialism; but they were, in a way, only lip-service to skepticism. Never did he hear those bells without being stirred by childhood recollections-the mysteries of the altar, the sacrament, and the admonitions of his mother and that just old man, the archdeacon. He was stirred by more than mere esthetic sensations or the pathos of a youth one cannot recapture. And he was

moved now profoundly as he rose from his chair, hearing in ghastly counterpoint to the golden notes of the bells, sharp reports over a newlymade grave, a few leagues away.

A little earlier, a bewildered princeling had been taken from a dungeon, bidding his captors a courteous "Good morning!" and inquiring blithely where they were taking him. They led him down the staircase, followed by his dog, and through a postern into the dried-up moat, just as the sun rose. The sunshine was glorious, every twig and leaf on the plain seeming to reflect the light. Then he saw a heap of hastily piled up earth, a hollow beside it. He had his answer; he knew now where they were sending him. Still bewildered, he asked that his eyes be left unbound, as they stood him against the dripping walls, twelve long barrels pointing at his heart.

"Aim straight, messieurs!" he said gallantly.

They obeyed, though it is not easy to aim straight when one can see a handsome young face smiling bravely in the dawn.

The body tumbled. There was a sound of mattocks striking gravel. The earth fell, was heaped up. A little dog crawled toward it and whimpered.

And the shots and the sweet angelus on the morning air had been almost simultaneous. As the last bronze tongue grew still, Napoleon stirred in his chair and shivered. The fire had gone out.

22

Neither Lucien nor Letizia was present at the ceremony when they crowned her son emperor. The new

court painter David, painted her in; but that was an artistic white lie designed to please a ruler who might like to have any breach in the family healed, even pictorially.

This magniloquent event did not take place until December second, although he had been proclaimed in May. Meantime, Cadoudal, the leader of the great conspiracy, had been executed; Pichegru had strangled himself; and General Moreau had been sentenced to prison, but only for two years, later to be nobly pardoned by Napoleon, though this old rival had aimed at his life.

In preparing for the new order, there had been considerable trouble about titles. As marshals of the new empire, Murat, Masséna, Lannes, Berthier, Ney, Bernadotte, Augereau Lefèbre, Mortier, Jourdan, had to be content; so also the two associate consuls, Cambacèrés and Lebrun, as arch-chancellor and arch-treasurer respectively. "Prince Joseph, Grand Elector" sounded well, and "Prince Louis, Grand Constable of the Empire." Even Eugène was a prince and old Bacciochi a senator.

But Elisa, Pauline and Caroline made quite a to-do when, at a dinner at Malmaison, Duroc announced each of the relatives by the new labels. Now Pauline had reveled in being called the Princess Borghese when Josephine was still only Madame la Première Consul. But now Josephine was Her Majesty, Hortense not only a princess, but Her Imperial Highness-a distinction with a difference-while Caroline was only Madame la Maréchale and Eliza plain Madame la Sénatrice. All through the dinner they sat eyeing like Cinderella's stepsisters, their

sister-in-law. All through dinner, too, Napoleon twitted them, preceding every sentence addressed to the Beauharnais faction by the new titles, and looking at the three sisters slyly to see the effect.

It was too much. With the sweets Caroline fainted. And the imperial brother, as he bent over her, whispered, "As usual, you women have won!" and aloud to the guests, "Do not fear, Her Imperial Highness will come to." Then, as Caroline opened her eyes at the magic words, he called, with finger raised in mock admonition, "Announce them all over again, Duroc. And remember now, it is Their Imperial Highnesses. One slip and off with your head!"

Weather did not favor the coronation festivities. It was a cold and frosty morning when Constant pulled aside the draperies to awaken the one-time sous-lieutenant. So chill it was in fact that Constant advised an extra pair of cassimere, as he began slowly to array his impatient master, first with the exquisite cambric shirt which he patted lovingly, silk stockings embroidered in gold with diamond buckles to clasp them; and in prompt order, the white silk breeches and braces studded with gems. Then he got down on his knees to lace the velvet boots, Napoleon keeping up a running fire of comment the while, "What! gems even on the braces! The devil! Odiotte and Marguerette will send us a pretty bill!" but nevertheless not altogether displeased.

And now came the white velvet vest with diamonds in the buttons, and an under-coat of crimson velvet faced with white and caught with double clasps of diamonds. Finally,

for this man who once had polished his own boots in Auxonne, the coronation robe, crimson, too, lined with white velvet and studded all over with gold bees and held by a golden cord and tassel! The little valet staggered under it, for it weighed eighty pounds.

Thus bravely arrayed in clothes costing more than a million francs, not counting the crowns awaiting him in the cathedral, he emerged with Josephine from the great entrance where the rabble had slain the Swiss Guard, and entered a coach, drawn like Cinderella's, by eight creamcolored horses. He, however, had no thought of the glory vanishing when his clock struck twelve.

And it looked like a pumpkin, this wondrous vehicle with its great gilt body surmounted by four gold eagles supporting a gold crown. Waisthigh, the panels were painted in pink and blue; the rest was glass, so that the royal pair might be viewed, as is the casket in an undertaker's wagon.

The old pope, who had been inveigled into crowning him, Napoleon had sent on ahead, in a gilt coach preceded by a man on a mule bearing the historic cross. Then from the Carrousel by the Rue St. Honoré, where at Vendémiaire he had ordered his guns to speak, the great man rode on, led by Murat's beet-red plumes and clattering dragoons clad in green with glittering casques, through lines of red and blue footsoldiers stationed at the sides to keep the populace back. Windows along the way rented at three hundred francs, and from cornice and ledge and pinnacle everywhere streamed gaudy-colored paper flowers and festoons. They had culled out a