CHAPTER XV.

THE FIFTH OF MAY, 1870.

It was the forty-ninth anniversary of the death of the eagle chained to the rock--of the Prometheus who was not unbound--of Napoleon Bonaparte imprisoned at St. Helena. Captivity, despair, dropsy--these were the last scenes in the great world-drama of the modern Cæsar, the little lieutenant of artillery, who sprang from the obscurity of his islet-home in the Mediterranean to the perilous eminence of the purple. This was the end of the spoiled child of victory.

On this day the veterans of his wars, 'the old of the old,' mustered at the foot of his monument in the Place Vendôme, in the core of the busy city--the monument which typified him as the Conquering Hero, who was the ideal of French martial aspirations--the being after the nation's heart. Proudly uprises in the middle of the square the tall pillar--an immense trophy covered with plates of bronze from the monster crucible in which the captured cannon of the Austrians were melted down. The statue of the Imperial soldier is on the summit, laurel-crowned, garbed in regal mantle, the sceptre in one hand, the orb in the other. It would have been better if it were sword or _bâton_, instead of sceptre or orb--the chasseur's jacket of Marengo, instead of the regal mantle--the three-cornered hat, instead of the garland of Roman triumph.

On this day the statue holds levée. Stooped veterans draw their old uniforms from the bottom of musty drawers, put on the plumed shako pierced with bullets, and the belts blackened with the powder of twenty battles, and march with tottering step to lay their memorial wreaths of the yellow-budded immortelles on the railings at the base.

'Tap! tap!' brattle the drum-sticks, plied by wrinkled fingers, and slowly comes in sight the slender company from the Hôtel des Invalides, for some of these warriors have to hobble to the rendezvous on crutches. The sight is one to thrill and sadden, as these glorious relics of an era that is past file feebly by, in every variety of military dress that recalls the First Empire. There are about five-and-thirty of them--no more. They halt and form into line in front of the entrance to the monument. The stalwart Municipal Guard on sentry presents arms; the withered commander of the band advances and hangs his huge votive circlet of flowers on a rail, the drummer makes his most vigorous attempt at a roulade, but there is the tremor of palsy in the sound; it is as the rattling of clay on a coffin-lid.

'_Vive l'Empereur!_' pipes the commander, and a faint cheer, a cheer as if from out the dimness of some distant vault, is the response from his companions.

'Live the Man!' exclaims a stooped officer in cocked hat, brandishing his stick as if it were a battle-blade. The stooped officer was Captain Chauvin. Having acquitted themselves of the duty of loyal love, the veterans broke up and dispersed, and our friend joined four bystanders on the pavement of the Rue Castiglione. They were M. and Madame O'Hoolohan, and M. and Madame O'Hara. They helped the aged warrior into a close carriage--for he had grown sadly helpless of late--and drove quietly to his apartment near the Panthéon. He complained of a coldness in the limbs. They sate him in an easy-chair before the stove, and wrapped him round with a warm cloak. He fell into a child-like slumber. This may have lasted an hour, and then, with a loud voice, a voice with the vibration of young manhood, the veteran exclaimed:

'Farewell, my friends; they are beating the _appel_ on high.'

Lifting himself to his feet, by a superhuman effort, he stood straight as a lance for one moment, then flung out his arms and fell back dead.

There was a smile on his wan thin lips, and a hectic glow on his cheeks. He was happier than his comrades, who did not follow him till another year had driven France to grief and Paris to delirium, had wiped out the legend of the Empire as with a bloody sponge, and had torn down the monument to The Man.

THE END.

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In Paris the pawn-office is called 'my aunt,' as it is nick-named 'my uncle' in England.

[2] 'To have the sack,' Paris slang for 'to be in funds.'

[3] To be out of money.

[4] The debtors' prison.

[5] The typical name of the Irishman, but spelt 'patte' (paw), is a common word to dogs in France. This may explain why O'Hara fancied he had hit on the animal's name.

[6] The smaller island close by the Morgue.

[7] The soldier must have meant catafalque. The French _militaire_ from the country is as fond of words of learned length as Goldsmith's village schoolmaster.

[8] An anecdote of this nature is also told of Wilson, the eminent landscape-painter. Doffing his coat one day for a game of tennis at Rome, the picture of a splendid waterfall was discovered by way of lining to his waistcoat.

[9] This may strike such of my readers as never have enjoyed the confidence of a canine friend, as drawing too largely on their credulity; but I assure them, and 'I'm serious--so are all men upon paper'--that I had a dog once, of the Irish retriever breed, which carried my hat after me for the length of two streets from where it had been knocked off my head by some ruffian in an affray. I lost the same dog in Whitechapel, and it found its way home to St. John's Wood, across the breadth of crowded London.

[10] Margaret the milliner.

[11] My son, hearken to thy aged grandsire. Thou wert born but yesterday, and I am nearing the gate of death. Fly, for ever fly, this ungrateful soil that refuses thee life. On yonder ship, where the crowd embark, thou goest to seek the United States, those climates in the bosom of plenty, where twenty united peoples live happily together. Fear not the storms of the Atlantic; seek America; there thy lot will be sweeter. At the dawn of day thou hast commenced thy work under the gray sky in the bleak winters. I have seen thy strength and courage worn out tilling the fields of some duke and peer, whose steps have never trodden his domain; far from Ireland he travels in state. Unfortunate, the dearth is near. Quit for ever this sojourn of misery. In cultivating the fertile savannahs, preserve thy faith if thou wouldst prosper: make thy adieus to our barren furrows; we must part. Take this silver, the fruit of long sacrifices, a crust of bread is enough for me; the sea is fair, the winds blow soft; go, my child--thy grandsire blesses thee!

[12] Greenhorn, Johnny Raw.

End of Project Gutenberg's Mated from the Morgue, by John Augustus O'Shea