_Napoleon_ (_looking as if he would say, “D— your candour, Major Gahagan”_). “Well, well; it was so. Your brother was a Count, and died a General in my service.” _Gahagan_. “He was found lying upon the bodies of nine-and-twenty Cossacks at Borodino. They were all dead, and bore the Gahagan mark.” _Napoleon_ (_to Montholon_). “C’est vrai, Montholon: je vous donne ma parole d’honneur la plus sacrée, que c’est vrai. Ils ne sont pas d’autres, ces terribles Ga’gans. You must know that Monsieur gained the battle of Delhi as certainly as I did that of Austerlitz. In this way:— Ce bélitre de Lor Lake, after calling up his cavalry, and placing them in front of Holkar’s batteries, qui balayaient la plaine, was for charging the enemy’s batteries with his horse, who would have been écrasés, mitraillés, foudroyés to a man but for the cunning of ce grand rogue que vous voyez.” _Montholon_. “Coquin de Major, va!” _Napoleon_. “Montholon! tais-toi. When Lord Lake, with his great bull-headed English obstinacy, saw the _fâcheuse_ position into which he had brought his troops, he was for dying on the spot, and would infallibly have done so—and the loss of his army would have been the ruin of the East India Company—and the ruin of the English East India Company would have established my Empire (bah! it was a republic then!) in the East—but that the man before us, Lieutenant Goliah Gahagan, was riding at the side of General Lake.” _Montholon_ (_with an accent of despair and fury_). “Gredin! cent mille tonnerres de Dieu!” _Napoleon_ (_benignantly_). “Calme-toi, mon fidèle ami. What will you? It was fate. Gahagan, at the critical period of the battle, or rather slaughter (for the English had not slain a man of the enemy), advised a retreat.” _Montholon_. “Le lâche! Un Français meurt, mais il ne recule jamais.” _Napoleon_. “_Stupide!_ Don’t you see _why_ the retreat was ordered?— don’t you know that it was a feint on the part of Gahagan to draw Holkar from his impregnable entrenchments? Don’t you know that the ignorant Indian fell into the snare, and issuing from behind the cover of his guns, came down with his cavalry on the plains in pursuit of Lake and his dragoons? Then it was that the Englishmen turned upon him; the hardy children of the North swept down his feeble horsemen, bore them back to their guns, which were useless, entered Holkar’s entrenchments along with his troops, sabred the artillerymen at their pieces, and won the battle of Delhi!” As the Emperor spoke, his pale cheek glowed red, his eye flashed fire, his deep clear voice rung as of old when he pointed out the enemy from beneath the shadow of the Pyramids, or rallied his regiments to the charge upon the death-strewn plain of Wagram. I have had many a proud moment in my life, but never such a proud one as this; and I would readily pardon the word “coward,” as applied to me by Montholon, in consideration of the testimony which his master bore in my favour.