Tobacco and wine were set upon a side table, and every man as he
passed out took a glass of wine and enough tobacco for his pipe, and
said: "Of grace, your health, monseigneur!"
There were those who scoffed, who from natural habit disbelieved, and
nodded knowingly, and whispered in each other's ears; but these were in
the minority; and all the women and children declared for this new "Man
of Destiny." And when some foolish body asked him for a lock of his
hair, and old Madame Degardy (crazy Joan, as she was called) followed,
offering him a pinch of snuff, and a lad appeared with a bunch of violets
from Madame Chalice, the dissentients were cast in shadow, and had no
longer courage to doubt.
Madame Chalice had been merely whimsical in sending these violets, which
her gardener had brought her that very morning.
"It will help along the pretty farce," she had said to herself; and then
she sat her down to read Napoleon's letters to Josephine, and to wonder
that a woman could have been faithless and vile with such a man. Her
blood raced indignantly in her veins as she thought of it. She admired
intellect, supremacy, the gifts of temperament, deeds of war and
adventure beyond all. As yet her brain was stronger than her feelings;
there had been no breakers of emotion in her life. A wife, she had no
child; the mother in her was spent upon her husband, whose devotion,
honour, name, and goodness were dear to her.
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