She ended, of course, by knowing all the walks at Cap Martin and the neighbourhood. She set out each morning with her faithful tramping companion, the Greek reader. Sometimes, she would go along the rocks on the shore, sometimes wend her way through the woods; sometimes she would climb the steep hills, scrambling "up to the goats," as the herds say.... She never mentioned the destination or the direction of her excursions, a thing which troubled me greatly, notwithstanding that I had had the whole district searched and explored beforehand. How was I to look after her? "Set your mind at ease, my dear M. Paoli," she used to say, laughing. "Nothing will happen to me. What would you have them do to a poor woman? Besides, we are no more than the petal of a poppy or a ripple on the water!" [Illustration: THE EMPRESS OF AUSTRIA] Nevertheless, I was not easy, the more so as she obstinately refused to let one of my men follow her, even at a distance. One evening, however, having heard that some Italian navvies, who were at work on the Mentone road, had spoken in threatening terms of the crowned heads who are in the habit of visiting that part of the country, I begged the Empress to be pleased not to go in that direction and was promptly snubbed for my pains. "More of your fears," she replied. "I repeat, I am not afraid of them ... and I make no promise." I was determined. I redoubled my supervision and resolved to send one of my Corsican detectives, fully armed, disguised and got up like a navvy, with instructions to mix with the Italians who were breaking stones on the road. He rigged himself out in a canvas jacket and a pair of corduroy trousers and made up his face to perfection. Speaking Italian fluently, he diverted all suspicion on the part of his mates, who took him for a newly-arrived fellow-countryman of their own. He was there, lynx-eyed, with ears pricked up, doing his best to break a few stones, when suddenly a figure which he at once recognised appeared at a turn in the road. The night was beginning to fall; the Empress, accompanied by her reader, was on her way back to Cap Martin. Bending over his heap of stones, the sham navvy waited rather anxiously. When the Empress reached the group of road-makers, she stopped, hesitated a moment and then, noticing my man, doubtless because he looked the oldest, went up to him and said, in her kind way: "Is that hard work you're doing, my good man?" Not daring to raise his head, he stammered a few words in Italian. "Don't you speak French?" "_No, signora._" "Have you any children?" "_Si, signora._" "Then take this for them," slipping a louis into his hand. "Tell them that it comes from a lady who is very fond of children." And the Empress walked away. That same evening, seeing me at the hotel, she came up to me with laughing eyes: "Well, M. Paoli, you may scold me, if you like. I have been disobedient. I went along the Mentone road to-day and I talked to a navvy."