"You do not see?" retorted the Emperor with a frown of angry impatience. "De Marmont did--at once--but he is young--and enthusiastic, whereas you. . . . But don't you see that the news of Wellington's defeat must have enormous consequences on the money markets of the world--if only for a few hours? . . . It must send the prices on the foreign Bourses tumbling about people's ears and create an absolute panic on the London Stock Exchange. Only for a few hours of course . . . but do you not see that if any man is wise enough to buy stock in London during that panic he can make a fortune by re-selling the moment the truth is known?" "Even then, Sire," stammered Berthier, a little confused by this avalanche of seemingly irrelevant facts hurled at him at a moment when the whole map of Europe was being changed by destiny and her future trembled in the hands of God. "Ah, de Marmont saw it all . . . at once . . ." continued the Emperor earnestly, "he saw eye to eye with me. He knows that money--a great deal of money--is just what I want now . . . money to reorganise my army, to re-equip and reform it. The Chamber and my Ministers will never give me what I want. . . . My God! they are such cowards! and some of them would rather see the foreign troops again in Paris than Napoleon Emperor at the Tuileries. You should know that, Maréchal, and you, too, my good Bertrand. De Marmont knows it . . . that is why he rode to Brussels at the hour when I alone knew that all was lost at Waterloo, but when half Europe still thought that the Corsican ogre had conquered again. . . . De Marmont is in Brussels now . . . to-night he crosses over to England--to-morrow morning he and his broker will be in the Stock Exchange in London--calm, silent, watchful. An operation on the Bourse, what? like hundreds that have been done before . . . but in this case the object will be to turn one million into fifty so that with it I might rebuild my Empire again." He spoke with absolute conviction, and with indomitable fervour, sitting here quietly, he--the architect of the mightiest empire of modern days--just as he used to do in the camps at Austerlitz and Jena and Wagram and Friedland--with one clenched hand resting upon the rough deal table, the flickering light of the tallow candle illuminating the wide brow, the heavy jaw, those piercing eyes that still gazed--in this hour of supreme catastrophe--into a glorious future destined never to be--scheming, planning, scheming still, even while his Grand Army was melting into nothingness all around him, and distant volleys of musketry were busy consummating the final annihilation of the Empire which he had created and still hoped to rebuild. Berthier gave a quick sign of impatience.