It was like the gathering of ghosts from the past. It _was_ a gathering of ghosts from the past. These three, with their wrinkled cheeks, their quavering voices, their scanty white hair, their battered uniforms and weapons—these three were all that were left of that band of young recruits who, in the great days of France, had marched down the village street, shouting the songs of the Empire, blowing kisses to fair faces in the windows and the roadsides, exchanging glances with bright eyes that had grown dim at last and closed on earth and all its color and glitter. Like spars, they floated still, scarred and encrusted by the waves of time that had engulfed a generation so heroic, stupendous. Dufour, wrinkled, wizened, twisted with rheumatism, limped to his place. His grandson carried his musket and placed it in a corner by Bergeret’s; the old man had lost a limb at Quatre Bras and needed a stout stick to aid the wooden leg. “I will come again at six, grandfather,” the boy piped shrilly in his ear. “I say I will come again to fetch you at six.” “No, no; Pierre must stay,” interrupted Monsieur Laplume. “Eh? He must stay, too, and hear the stories of the olden days—the days of the glories of France.” The boy’s eyes lit up. “Come, we are ready. He shall sit by the little Josephine.” By and bye Madame Laplume brought in the meal, steaming from the oven. Bottles of red wine were ranged on the table. “There were five of us last year,” Dufour muttered. “Buffet and Deyrolles have dismissed.” “Eight the year before,” said Bergeret, rubbing his hands and smiling vacuously. “The ranks grow thin, comrades,” said Laplume. “Well, the first toast!” They rose, and drank in silence to the memory of that great man whom they had fought and bled and suffered for long since—and still remembered and adored. They drank to the old Marshals, to the Grande Armée, to village comrades whose bones lay in the Peninsula, in Germany, in Belgium, in the churchyards of France, but whose faces, dim and mournful, still looked at them through the mists of years, and whose voices still echoed in their memories. They lit cigars and pipes; but the room was full of the smoke of ancient battles. They talked of Desaix, Bessières, Junot, Murat, Lannes, Masséna, Ney—the old, unforgotten names. If they could come again! Ah, if _he_ could come again—how the scattered remnants of his lost legions would rally round him, and young France hurry to the eagles, and the glorious days return! “But we are making an end; we are making an end,” cried Tuck-of-Drum fiercely, bringing down his fist and making plates and bottles jump with the vehemence of the blow. “Chanzy and Duerot have them in the trap at last. I said so—did I not? Even the little Josephine remembers. On the day of Austerlitz——” An ominous booming, distant, sullen, like an echo of old years of strife, sounded in their ears. “It is thunder!” cried Pierre. Little Josephine clutched her mother’s arm.