Of course that made
the rest of us as calm and serene as John the Baptist. I don't know how
he managed it, but when he spoke to us, his words put fire into our
hearts; and in order to show him that we really were his children, and
not the kind of men to shrink from danger, we used to march right up to
great blackguards of cannon which bellowed and vomited balls without so
much as saying "Look out!" Even dying men had the nerve to raise their
heads and salute him with the cry of "Long live the Emperor!" Was that
natural? Would they have done that for a mere man?
Well, when he had settled all his folks comfortably, the Empress
Josephine--who was a good woman all the same--was so fixed that she
couldn't give him any family, and he had to leave her. He loved her
quite a little, too; but for reasons of state he had to have children.
When the kings of Europe heard of this trouble, they came to blows over
the question who should give him a wife. He finally married, they told
us, an Austrian woman.
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