“That is abominable!” cried Emile. “If I but knew the miscreant who did it, I would spare the executioner a bad business. Peste! if we want a victim, we Imperialists--and perhaps it is not unnatural we should--we ought to take Gneisenau who proposed a scaffold for the Emperor, Talleyrand who deceived and betrayed everybody impartially all round, or old Louis himself who ran away from his throne without striking a blow. We might spare at least the one chivalrous enemy who always spared us.” “It would be better for yourselves,” said Ivan. “And for others too. Baron Muffling[66] says he is longing to get the Czar out of Paris, as, if he is assassinated, or even insulted, no power on earth would be able to avert a general massacre of the inhabitants by the Allies.” “Which _you_ would take part in, Prince Ivan.” Ivan was silent for a moment, then he said in a tone of deep feeling, “Do not ask me. I am a Christian, I hope, but I am a _man_ also. I know not what I would do. God grant I may not be put to the test.” There was a pause, then Emile asked, “What does _he_ say?” “If I tell you, will you scoff?” “At him? No; that I can promise you.” “Well, then, he has asked his friends to pray for him.” “Useless, but harmless,” said Emile with an air of generous toleration. “Very clever persons have worn amulets; and even the great Napoleon was not free from a superstition or two.” “Not as an amulet against steel or poison does my Czar think of prayer. ‘Do not pray,’ he says, ‘that I may be guarded from the evil that man can do to me; I have no fears on these grounds. I know that I am in the hands of God.’” “That is like Napoleon’s confidence in his star,” thought Emile. He had almost uttered his thought aloud, but he checked himself in time. For he reflected that this was not blind confidence in a thing, in some unknown power--chance, fate, or destiny--but rather, what Ivan had spoken of to him before, trust in a _Person_. Ivan resumed presently, “What he desires his friends to ask for him is protection from the evil influences of the world, and specially _from those of this city_. Emile, you understand something of his meaning, and of mine?” Emile turned aside to avoid meeting the eyes of Ivan, for his words had touched a chord within. Thrown in idleness upon the great, unquiet, corrupt world of Paris, the position of the youth was truly perilous. Secret political intrigue was wooing him upon the one hand, while vice was spreading its snares to allure him upon the other. Ivan had succeeded in conveying an emphatic warning at the same time against both. “I wish I were more like Henri,” Emile said at last. “He is sometimes tiresome--a little, but he is as steady as a rock, a perfect gentleman, and a stainless man of honour.” “God will help you, Emile; then all will be well,” said Ivan as he left the room.