It was owing to this partiality that Desart had been able to intercede successfully with the emperor for the life of Jacques Lapin, who had once been condemned to be shot, for a frolick which might have been attended with serious consequences. Nothing would please M. Jacques Lapin, private of the —th foot, on the evening before Jena, when it was absolutely necessary that the position of the army should be kept as much as possible from the knowledge of the enemy, but to adorn two stuffed images of the Emperor of Austria and his imperial spouse with heavy cartridges, and display the same by the aid of fire before the eyes of his delighted countrymen. The reflection of Lapin’s pyrotechnic pleasantry shone even in the tent of Napoleon. The offender was dragged forth and ordered for instant execution. But Desart seized the moment when the emperor’s anger had somewhat abated, ridiculed the exhibition of the unfortunate artiste, proved to demonstration that he had been incited thereto only by his hatred of the enemies of France, got the emperor into good temper and secured a pardon for Lapin, who, as we have seen, did not omit to be grateful in the hour of need. After basking for so long a period in the sunshine of the emperor’s favor it was with sincere grief that Desart learned, on his return from Moscow, after a long and tedious illness which afflicted him on his way, that his patron and benefactor had quitted France and was then in the island of Elba. His first impulse was to disregard his own feelings as a husband, to leave, for his young and amiable wife, the still ample remnant of his once considerable fortune, and to follow his illustrious patron to his place of exile. But the formation of those wild but heroic clubs of “Buonapartists” led him to change his determination. He felt that he could do more good to the cause of the emperor by assisting it with his counsel, and, if necessary, with his sword, than if he were to retire to the presence of Napoleon for the purpose of sharing an exile which, to say the least, was inactive and useless. He therefore resolved to remain in France. He joined one of the most powerful of these clubs, and became so enthusiastic in his desire for an immediate counter revolution that he was unable, in public, sufficiently to conceal his political bias. He soon fell under the suspicion of the suspicious court, and was fortunate enough to receive, from a devoted brother officer, information of an arrest having been signed, within a minute or two after that document had passed under the hands of the minister. He had scarcely time to effect the necessary disguise of his person, and to pass through one of the gates of Paris, before the alarm was given generally, and ordered to be disseminated throughout the provinces. With the aid of an old passport, however, the date of which had been ingeniously altered, he contrived to evade all the posts on the route,