“Her health is failing,” Ivan answered, “and no doubt her heart is broken. In my boyhood I believed, with almost every one about me, that Napoleon owed his successes to her. We thought she possessed magical powers, and used to transform herself into a white dove, that she might hear and impart to him the counsels of his enemies. How amazed I would have been had any one told me that Napoleon would abandon her; and that the Czar, finding her forlorn and sorrowful, would, out of chivalrous pity, plead for and comfort her!” “Of all the bad actions of Napoleon’s bad life,” said M. de Sartines with emphasis, “I believe his treatment of that woman is the worst.” “Perhaps so, monsieur,” said Ivan. “Still _I_ can scarcely think it, because I have never seen the ex-Empress, while I _have_ seen the miserable remains of the gallant army which he abandoned so cruelly in the frozen plains of Lithuania.” The next moment he was sorry for his words, for he caught the angry glare in the eyes of Emile. Either he had not heard or he had forgotten that the lad was an ardent admirer of Buonaparte. “The Emperor is fallen,” said Emile, “therefore, of course, every one finds a stone to fling at him. He was not faultless,--I grant it. You cannot expect real greatness to bind itself down to the rules of a timid conventional morality. But at least he was entirely free from petty vanities and small affectations. You would never find _him_ laying himself out to gain the cheap praise of a magnanimous conqueror from the lips of the vulgar.” “_Never_, indeed,” assented Madame de Talmont. “True, undoubtedly,” said M. de Sartines. No one noticed Stéphanie’s aside: “I see; _very_ clever people need not care about being good. I shall tell my governess that.” But every one looked at Ivan. For a moment he grew perfectly white with anger; then his face resumed its natural colour, and a smile played about his lips. He said nothing, however, and Emile went on: “Consequently he never overshot the mark and made himself ridiculous, as I must say the Emperor Alexander did the other day, when he actually admitted to his own table, and spent hours in conversation with--whom do you think, ladies?” As neither Madame de Talmont nor Clémence replied, Stéphanie felt herself called upon. “Perhaps the Director of the Ecole Polytechnique, or--could it possibly have been one of the boys?--_students_, I beg your pardon,” said she with a saucy glance at Emile. “My dear child,” said her father in a grieved and reproving aside, “do not, I pray thee, try to act _l’enfant terrible_.” Emile did not condescend to notice her, “No one greater,” he resumed, “than the Abbé Sicard.” “Who is he?” asked M. de Sartines. Madame de Talmont and Clémence knew very well, and looked interested. “An old fool of a priest who spends his life picking up deaf and dumb children out of the streets, and teaching them to read and to say their prayers,” replied Emile.