A Conspiracy of the Carbonari | Page 7

gentlemen! In six weeks, at latest, we must give Austria a decisive battle which will make it depend solely on my will whether I permit the house of Hapsburg to reign longer or bury it in the nonentity of inglorious oblivion!"
After the emperor, standing among his silent generals, had spoken in a voice which rose louder and louder till it finally echoed like menacing thunder through the hall, he nodded a farewell, by a haughty bend of the head, and returned to his office, whose door he now not merely left ajar, but closed with a loud bang.
With his hands behind his back, an angry expression upon his face, and a frowning brow, the emperor paced up and down his room, absorbed in gloomy thought. Sometimes a flash of indignation illumined his face, and he raised his arm with a threatening gesture, as if, like a second Jupiter, to hurl back into the depths the Titans who dared to rise to his throne.
"To appoint a successor," he muttered in a fierce, threatening tone, "they dare to think, to busy themselves with that. The ingrates! It is I who gave them fame, honor, titles, wealth; they are already cogitating about my death--my successor! It is a conspiracy which extends throughout the whole army. I know it. I was warned in Spain against the plots of the Carbonari, and the caution has been repeated here. And I must keep silence. I cannot punish the traitors, for that would consign the majority of my generals to the ax of the executioner. But I will give them all a warning example. I will intimidate them, let them have an intimation that I am aware of their treacherous plans."
He sank down into the armchair which stood before his writing-desk, took a pen-knife and began to mark and cut the arm of the chair with as much zeal and perseverance as if the object in view was to accomplish some useful and urgent task. Then, when the floor was covered with tiny chips, and the black, delicately carved wood of the old-fashioned armchair was marked with white streaks and spots, the emperor hurled the knife down and rose hastily from his seat.
"This Colonel Oudet must die," he said, each word falling slowly and impressively from his lips. "I cannot crush all the limbs, but I will make the head fall, and that will paralyze them. Yes, this Colonel Oudet must die!"
Then, as if the sentence of death which he had just uttered had relieved his soul of an oppressive burden, and lightened his heart, the gloomy expression vanished from his face, which was now almost brightened by a ray of joy.
Seizing the silver hand-bell, he rang it violently twice. Instantly the door leading into his sleeping-room opened and Roustan, gliding in, stood humbly and silently awaiting the emperor's orders.
Napoleon, with a slight nod, beckoned to him to approach, and when Roustan, like a tiger-cat, noiselessly reached his side with two swift bounds, the emperor gazed with a long, searching look into the crafty, smiling face of his Mameluke.
"So you listened to the conversation between the generals?" asked the emperor.
"I don't know, sire," said Roustan, shaking his head eagerly. "I probably did not understand everything, for they spoke in low tones, and sometimes I lost the connection. But I heard them talking about my illustrious emperor and master, so, as your majesty meanwhile had awaked, I thought it advisable to inform you that the generals were having a conversation in the drawing-room, because your majesty might perhaps desire to take part in it."
"You did right, Roustan," said the emperor, with the pleasant smile that won every heart; "yes, you did right, and I will reward you for it. You can go to Bourrienne and have him pay you a hundred gold pieces."
"Oh, sire," cried Roustan, "then I shall be very happy, for I shall have a hundred portraits of my worshiped emperor."
"Which you will doubtless scatter to the four winds quickly enough, you spendthrift," exclaimed Napoleon. "But listen, you rogue: besides my hundred gold portraits, I'll give you a bit of advice which is worth more than the gold coins. Forget everything that you have heard to-day, beware of treasuring in your memory even a single word of the generals, or recollecting that you have called my attention to it."
"Sire," replied Roustan, with an expression of astonishment, "Sire, I really do not know what your majesty is talking about, and what I could have said or heard. I only know that my gracious emperor and master has given me a hundred gold napoleons, and present happiness has so overpowered me, so bewildered my senses that I have lost my memory."
The emperor laughed, and as a special proof of his favor pinched the Mameluke's ear so hard that