"Captain Minerva!" cried Monge. "Why did you not call him that at first? Captain Minerva was killed beneath the walls of Mantua a few weeks before I arrived in that city. His death had made a great impression, because it was associated with marvellous happenings which were related to me, though I do not remember them exactly. All I recollect is that General Miollis ordered Captain Minerva's sword and gorget, crowned with laurels, to be carried at the head of the column which one feast day defiled in front of Virgil's grotto, as a tribute to the memory of the poet of heroes." "Aubelet's," resumed Bonaparte, "was that perfectly calm courage which I have never observed in anyone save Bessières. His passions were of the noblest. And in everything he sacrificed himself. He had a brother in arms, Captain Demarteau, a few years his senior, whom he loved with all the affection of a great heart. Demarteau did not resemble his friend. Impulsive, passionate, equally eager for pleasure and for danger, he was always the life and soul of the camp. Aubelet was the proud devotee of duty, Demarteau the joyous lover of glory. The latter returned his comrade's affection. In those two friends the story of Nisus and Euryalus was re-enacted beneath our flag. The end, both of one and the other, was surrounded with extraordinary circumstances. They were told to me, Monge, as to you, but I paid better heed, although at that time my mind was occupied with greater affairs. I desired to take Mantua without delay and before a new Austrian army had time to enter Italy. Nevertheless I found time to read a report of the incidents which had preceded and followed Captain Aubelet's death. Certain of these incidents border on the miraculous. Their cause must either be assigned to unknown faculties, which man may acquire in unique moments, or to the intervention of an intelligence superior to ours." "General, you must exclude the second hypothesis," said Berthollet. "An observer of nature never perceives the intervention of a superior intelligence." "I know that you deny the existence of Providence," replied Bonaparte. "That may be permissible for a scientist shut tip in his study, but not for a leader of peoples who can only control the ordinary mind through a community of ideas. If you would govern men, you must think with them on all great subjects. You must move with public opinion." And, raising his eyes to the light flaming in the darkness on the pinnacle of the mainmast, he said, with hardly a pause: "The wind blows from the north." He had changed the subject with the suddenness which was his wont and which had caused some one to say to M. Denon: "The General shuts the drawer." Admiral Gantheaume observed that they could not expect the wind to change before the first days of autumn. The light was flaring towards Egypt. Bonaparte looked in that direction. His gaze plunged into space; and, speaking in staccato tones, he let fall these words: