The Companions of Jehu Part 67

"One o'clock," said Morgan; "come, gentlemen, we must relay at Lagny at three."

From that moment the expedition had begun, and Morgan became its leader; he no longer consulted, he commanded.

D'a.s.sas, who in Morgan's absence commanded, was the first to obey on his return.

Half an hour later a closed carriage containing four young men wrapped in their cloaks was stopped at the Fontainebleau barrier by the post-guard, who demanded their pa.s.sports.

"Oh, what a joke!" exclaimed one of them, putting his head out of the window and affecting the p.r.o.nunciation of the day. "Pa.s.spawts to dwive to Gwobois to call on citizen _Ba-as_? 'Word of fluted honor!' you're cwazy, fwend! Go on, dwiver!"

The coachman whipped up his horses and the carriage pa.s.sed without further opposition.

CHAPTER XXVIII. FAMILY MATTERS

Let us leave our four _hunters_ on their way to Lagny--where, thanks to the pa.s.sports they owed to the obligingness of certain clerks in citizen Fouche's employ, they exchanged their own horses for post-horses and their coachman for a postilion--and see why the First Consul had sent for Roland.

After leaving Morgan, Roland had hastened to obey the general's orders.

He found the latter standing in deep thought before the fireplace. At the sound of his entrance General Bonaparte raised his head.

"What were you two saying to each other?" asked Bonaparte, without preamble, trusting to Roland's habit of answering his thought.

"Why," said Roland, "we paid each other all sorts of compliments, and parted the best friends in the world."

"How does he impress you?"

"As a perfectly well-bred man."

"How old do you take him to be?"

"About my age, at the outside."

"So I think; his voice is youthful. What now, Roland, can I be mistaken?

Is there a new royalist generation growing up?"

"No, general," replied Roland, shrugging his shoulders; "it's the remains of the old one."

"Well, Roland, we must build up another, devoted to my son--if ever I have one."

Roland made a gesture which might be translated into the words, "I don't object." Bonaparte understood the gesture perfectly.

"You must do more than not object," said he; "you must contribute to it."

A nervous shudder pa.s.sed over Roland's body.

"In what way, general?" he asked.

"By marrying."

Roland burst out laughing.

"Good! With my aneurism?" he asked.

Bonaparte looked at him, and said: "My dear Roland, your aneurism looks to me very much like a pretext for remaining single."

"Do you think so?"

"Yes; and as I am a moral man I insist upon marriage."

"Does that mean that I am immoral," retorted Roland, "or that I cause any scandal with my mistresses?"

"Augustus," answered Bonaparte, "created laws against celibates, depriving them of their rights as Roman citizens."

"Augustus--"

"Well?"

"I'll wait until you are Augustus; as yet, you are only Caesar."

Bonaparte came closer to the young man, and, laying his hands on his shoulders, said: "Roland, there are some names I do not wish to see extinct, and among them is that of Montrevel."

"Well, general, in my default, supposing that through caprice or obstinacy I refuse to perpetuate it, there is my little brother."

"What! Your brother? Then you have a brother?"

"Why, yes; I have a brother! Why shouldn't I have brother?"

"How old is he?"

"Eleven or twelve."

"Why did you never tell me about him?"

"Because I thought the sayings and doings of a youngster of that age could not interest you."

"You are mistaken, Roland; I am interested in all that concerns my friends. You ought to have asked me for something for your brother."

"Asked what, general?"

"His admission into some college in Paris."

"Pooh! You have enough beggars around you without my swelling their number."

"You hear; he is to come to Paris and enter college. When he is old enough, I will send him to the Ecole Militare, or some other school which I shall have founded before then."

"Faith, general," said Roland, "just as if I had guessed your good intentions, he is this very day on the point of, starting for Paris."

"What for?"