A Soldier Of The Empire

Soldier Of The Empire", by
Thomas Nelson Page

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Title: "A Soldier Of The Empire" 1891
Author: Thomas Nelson Page
Release Date: October 12, 2007 [EBook #23014]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SOLDIER OF THE EMPIRE" ***

Produced by David Widger

"A SOLDIER OF THE EMPIRE."
By Thomas Nelson Page
1891

It was his greatest pride in life that he had been a soldier--a soldier of
the empire. (He was known simply as "The Soldier," and it is probable
that there was not a man or woman, and certain that there was not a
child in the Quarter who did not know him: the tall, erect old Sergeant
with his white, carefully waxed moustache, and his face seamed with
two sabre cuts. One of these cuts, all knew, had been received the
summer day when he had stood, a mere boy, in the hollow square at
Waterloo, striving to stay the fierce flood of the "men on the white
horses"; the other, tradition said, was of even more ancient date.)
Yes, they all knew him, and knew how when he was not over thirteen,
just the age of little Raoul the humpback, who was not as tall as Pauline,
he had received the cross which he always wore over his heart sewed in
the breast of his coat, from the hand of the emperor himself, for
standing on the hill at Wagram when his regiment broke, and beating
the long-roll, whilst he held the tattered colors resting in his arm, until
the men rallied and swept back the left wing of the enemy. This the
children knew, as their fathers and mothers and grandfathers and
grandmothers before them had known it, and rarely an evening passed
that some of the gamins were not to be found in the old man's kitchen,
which was also his parlor, or else on his little porch, listening with
ever-new delight to the story of his battles and of the emperor. They all
knew as well as he the thrilling part where the emperor dashed by (the
old Sergeant always rose reverently at the name, and the little audience
also stood,--one or two nervous younger ones sometimes bobbing up a
little ahead of time, but sitting down again in confusion under the
contemptuous scowls and pluckings of the rest),--where the emperor
dashed by, and reined up to ask an officer what regiment that was that
had broken, and who was that drummer that had been promoted to
ensign;--they all knew how, on the grand review afterwards, the
Sergeant, beating his drum with one hand (while the other, which had
been broken by a bullet, was in a sling), had marched with his company
before the emperor, and had been recognized by him. They knew how
he had been called up by a staff-officer (whom the children imagined to
be a fine gentleman with a rich uniform, and a great shako like Marie's
uncle, the drum-major), and how the emperor had taken from his own
breast and with his own hand had given him the cross, which he had

never from that day removed from his heart, and had said, "I would
make you a colonel if I could spare you."
This was the story they liked best, though there were many others
which they frequently begged to be told--of march and siege and battle,
of victories over or escapes from red-coated Britishers and fierce
German lancers, and of how the mere presence of the emperor was
worth fifty thousand men, and how the soldiers knew that where he was
no enemy could withstand them. It all seemed to them very long ago,
and the soldier of the empire was the only man in the Quarter who was
felt to be greater than the rich nobles and fine officers who flashed
along the great streets, or glittered through the boulevards and parks
outside. More than once when Paris was stirred up, and the Quarter
seemed on the eve of an outbreak, a mounted orderly had galloped up
to his door with a letter, requesting his presence somewhere (it was
whispered at the prefect's), and when he returned, if he refused to speak
of his visit the Quarter was satisfied; it trusted him and knew that when
he advised quiet it was for its good. He loved France first, the Quarter
next. Had he not been offered--? What had he not been offered!