The Emperor rose and everyone followed his example. He offered his arm to the Queen of Holland, but she looked at the Empress, who had not yet risen. The Emperor’s face lighted up with that smile which I had already seen. He said a word to General Fleury, and immediately the generals and other officers on duty, who were seated behind the sovereigns, formed a rampart between the crowd and the Empress. The Emperor and the Queen of Holland then passed on, without appearing to have noticed her majesty’s distress, and the Prince of Orange, with one knee on the ground, helped the beautiful sovereign to put on her Cinderella-like slipper. I saw that the Empress leaned more heavily on the prince’s arm than she liked, for her pretty foot was evidently rather painful. We were then sent for to be complimented, and we were surrounded and fêted so much that we were delighted with our evening. CHAPTER X IN FIRE AND WAR After “Le Passant” and the famous success of that adorable piece, a success in which Agar and I had our share, Chilly thought more of me and began to like me. He insisted on paying for our costumes, which was great extravagance for him. I had become the adored queen of the students, and I used to receive little bouquets of violets, sonnets, and long, long poems—too long to read. Sometimes, on arriving at the theater, as I was getting out of my carriage, I received a shower of flowers which simply covered me, and I was delighted and used to thank my worshipers. The only thing was that their admiration blinded them, so that when in some pieces I was not so good, and the house was rather chary of applause, my little army of students would be indignant, and would cheer wildly, without rhyme or reason. I can understand quite well that this used to exasperate the regular subscribers of the Odéon, who were very kindly disposed toward me, nevertheless. They, too, used to spoil me, but they would have liked me to be more humble and meek, and less headstrong. How many times one or another of those old subscribers would come and give me a word of advice! “Mademoiselle, you were charming in ‘Junie,’” one of them observed, “but you bite your lips, and the Roman women never did that!” “My dear girl,” another one said, “you were delicious in ‘François le Champi,’ but there is not a single Breton woman in the whole of Brittany with her hair frizzed.” A professor from the Sorbonne said to me one day, rather curtly: “It is a want of respect, mademoiselle, to turn your back on the public!” “But, monsieur,” I replied, “I was accompanying an old lady to a door at the back of the stage. I could not walk along with her backward.” “The _artistes_ we had before you, mademoiselle, who were quite as talented, found a way of going across the stage without turning their backs on the public.” With this he turned quickly on his heels and was going away, but I stopped him.