“By no means. But Napoleon has always acted as though it were; has aimed at it, lived for it, sacrificed everything to it, and finally lost it. As he has now left--been forced to leave--his country to the deadly enemies his ambition has raised up against her, what will the end be, Emile?” “Who can tell? As for me, I feel ready to hang myself.” “Pray for the life and health of my Czar. You will see him stand between the avengers and their prey; between prostrate France and victorious Germany; and even, so far as becomes a foreigner, between prostrate Imperialists and victorious Royalists.” “That it should come to this! That France--our proud, glorious France--should have to thank a Czar of Russia!” “Where is the shame of thanking him, if God has given him the power to befriend her?” “_God?_” Emile repeated scornfully. “That’s your way of talking, you Russians. Don’t you see now that it ends in folly and fanaticism?” Ivan laid his hand on the shoulder of Emile. “My dear boy,” he said, “do you know why I am talking with you thus? Not to make you believe in my Czar. _His_ glory is in good keeping; and if you prefer Napoleon for a hero, I have no more to say. The cause I want to plead with you is not his, but your own. You call him fanatic and dreamer because of his faith in God and in Christ. I want to show you that it is this very faith which makes him generous, merciful, just.” “I do not see the good of faith,” Emile broke in passionately. “I don’t mean _religious_ faith, but faith of any kind. We had faith--oh, such intense, glorious, undoubting faith--in the Emperor and in his star. And we loved him so! You cannot understand it, Prince Ivan, but it is true. Do you remember Henri’s friend, the Old ‘Garde’ Rougeard, who came to tell me of the Emperor’s return? He fell at Waterloo; a comrade of his, who crept back wounded to die amongst his children, told me about it. When all was lost, the remnant of the Old Guard was called upon to surrender. ‘La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas,’ was the proud reply; and those brave men died where they stood.[63] Poor Rougeard took the colours from the falling ensign, and with his dying hand wrapped them round his breast. ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ was his last word.” “And the Emperor lived, _after_ such followers as these,” said Ivan with tears in his eyes. Emile saw the tears, and they did him more good than a hundred admonitions. Ivan presently resumed: “Suppose, Emile, that when your Emperor dies some one were to try to persuade the world that he had never existed,--that his whole personality, life, and career was a fiction from first to last?” “Any one who tried it would be laughed at for his pains.” “Of course. Every effect must have a cause. Men do not love, trust in, die for that which is not, and never has been.” “What are you trying to say?” asked Emile, a little surprised. “That the existence of Christ is as certain as that of Napoleon.” “Was. There was once such a Person, I am sure.”