The Twin Lieutenants | Page 4

on the mahogany back, closed his eyes, uttered a faint sigh and slept.
Napoleon possessed, like Caesar, that precious faculty of sleeping when he would, where he would, and as long as he pleased; when he once said, "I shall sleep a quarter of an hour," it was rare that the aide-de-camp, the usher or the secretary to whom the order was given, and who, at the precise moment, entered to arouse him, found him not opening his eyes.
Beside, he had another privilege, granted like the first to men of genius; Napoleon awoke without any transition whatever from deep slumber to wakefulness; his eyes, on opening seemed immediately illuminated; his brain was as clear, his ideas as precise a second after his slumber as a second before.
The door was hardly shut behind the usher, charged to call together the three men of state, than Napoleon was asleep, and--strange thing! without one trace of the passions which agitated his mind being reflected on his face.
A single candle burned in the cabinet.
At the desire expressed by the Emperor to sleep a few minutes, the usher had taken away the two candelabras, whose too bright a light might have, striking his eyelids, affected Napoleon's eyes; he had only left the candle, by the aid of which he had lighted his master and lit the candelabras.
The entire cabinet swam thus in one of those soft and transparent half-tints which give to objects so charming and so vaporous a vagueness. It is in the midst of this luminous obscurity, or this obscure light as you will, that pass those dreams caused by sleep, or appear those phantoms which are invoked by remorse.
One would have believed that one of those dreams or one of those phantoms had waited but for this mysterious light to reign around the Emperor; for, instantly he had closed his eyes, the tapestry, which fell before a little door it hid, was upraised, and there appeared a white form having, thanks to the gauze which wrapped it and its flexibility of movements, all the fantastic aspect of a shade.
The figure stopped an instant in the door, as in an encasement of shadows; then with a step so light, so aerial, that the silence was not broken even by the creak of the floor, she slowly approached Napoleon.
When near him, she held out from a cloud of muslin a charming hand which she placed upon the back of the chair, near that head which seemed one of the Roman emperors; she sometime kept her eyes upon the visage, calm as a medal of Augustus, uttered a half retained sigh, laid her left hand upon her heart to compress its beatings, bent over, retaining her breath, kissed the sleeper's brow more with her breath than with her lips, and feeling at that contact, all light as it was, a quiver of the muscles of that face, before so immovable that one would think it a wax mask, she drew herself quickly back.
The motion she had provoked, however, was as imperceptible as passing; that calm countenance, wrinkled a moment by that breath of love, as is the lake by the breeze of night, resumed its placid physiognomy, while, with and still on her heart, the shadowy visitor approached the bureau, wrote some lines on a half sheet of paper, returned to the sleeper, slipped the paper into the opening produced between the shirt and the waistcoat by the introduction of a hand no less white and delicate than her own; then, as lightly as she came, smothering the sound of her steps in the carpet's soft thickness, disappeared by the same door that had given her entrance.
Some seconds after the vanishing of this vision, and as the clock was about to ring the half after two, the sleeper opened his eyes and withdrew his hand from his breast.
The half hour sounded.
Napoleon smiled as would have smiled Augustus, at seeing that he was as much master of himself asleep as awake, and picked up a paper which had fallen as he took out his hand.
Upon this paper, he distinguished some written words, and bent toward the only light which lit up the apartment; but before he could decipher the words, he had recognized the writing.
He sighed and read:
"Thou art here! I have embraced thee. She who loves thee more than all the world."
"Josephine !" murmured he, looking around him, as if he expected to see her appear in the depths of the apartment or leap from behind some piece of furniture.
But he was really alone.
At this moment, the door opened, the usher entered carrying the two candelabras, and announced:
"His excellence Monsieur the Archchancellor."
Napoleon arose, went to the mantel-piece, leant upon it and waited.
Behind the usher appeared the high personage who had been introduced.
CHAPTER II.
THREE STATESMEN.
REGIS DE CAMBACERES