Part 67 (1/2)
”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.