that you, I, and all of the family, if you do what you say you will, may get ready to join shortly those poor innocent devils whom you so legally, so humanely-above all, with so much justice-have had transported to Cayenne." [The reference was to certain alleged conspirators whom many thought harshly punished. Lucien says it was a home-thrust, and he longed to get away. But now came an aquatic explosion the consequences of which he escaped by being in the background, but which Joseph received the full force of-an explosion caused by the quick rising and plunging back of Napoleon so that the water dashed out in a flood on the floor. He thundered at the same time, "You insolent fellow, I ought-" Lucien says he did not hear the rest of the sentence, if there was any more.] Excited though he was himself, he could not help remarking the contrast in his two exasperated brothers. While Joseph reddened with his fury, the pallor of Napoleon's face and breast only grew more marked. Feeling that he ought to play the part of Napoleon and Joseph Quarrel conciliator in the wordy battle that had now become so violent, he hit out felicitously in discharging his part. Recalling the passage from the first book of the Æneid, in which Neptune chides the winds which, without his authority, have raised a great storm at sea, throwing himself into an appropriate attitude, he broke in with the sonorous lines: "Tantane vos generis tenuit fiducia vestri, Jam coelum terramque meo sine numine, Venti, Quos ego -sed motos præstat componere fluctus.” * Probably Lucien possessed in good measure the dramatic faculty belonging to his race and family, and gave an effective burlesque, set off with all proper gesture and facial play. His expedient, at any rate, drew the electricity from the cloud and discharged it harmlessly. The angry combatants sobered down. Joseph had received full in the face the splash from the tub, which had also drenched his clothes. While the valet was sponging him off he muttered with cooling * Are you so possessed of confidence in yourselves that you now dare without my sanction, O Winds, to confound heaven and earth and to pile up such masses? Whom I—but first I must quiet the disturbed waves. passion, "Anyhow, your god is a big fool (bien fou)!" "But the god," says Lucien, "disarmed, or wishing to appear so, remarked to me in a way pleasantly responsive, 'You always have something that hits the occasion.'" The scene in the relating is absurdly grotesque, but no doubt was really terrifying. The valet had been not long before in the service of Joseph, and had hurried to the help of his old master when the drenching occurred. But now he gave all the brothers a shock by falling to the floor in a fainting fit, for which probably the quarrel of the magnates which he had just witnessed, gave good excuse. The Bonapartes good-heartedly rushed to the rescue. Joseph hurried to pick him up from the floor; Lucien rang the bell so hard that Rustan came in frightened, to find out what was the matter; while the lips of Napoleon, just visible over the bathtub's edge, ejaculated sympathetically, “Carry off the poor fellow, and take good care of him." Joseph and Lucien, helped by Rustan and a new servant, got the man to his feet, as he slowly recovered. Lucien now offered to help the First Consul, but the help was declined. Joseph stood soaked and grumbling (bougonnant) in a corner, causing Napoleon to offer him, in a tone more cool than obliging, his own dressing-room to change his clothes; to which Joseph replied still more coolly, that he should change at home. "Are you coming, Lucien?" he asked me. "Did he get a splashing too?" said the First Consul. "No," said I. "Do me the favor, then," said Napoleon, "of waiting for me with Bourrienne. I want to talk with you. I'll be with you in a few mo ments." CHAPTER VI THE QUARREL WITH LUCIEN THE first part of the battle over the sale of Louisiana was finished. Joseph had been routed. Lucien, though present, had not been active, contenting himself, while his brothers fired the serious volleys with "marking time," so to speak.* He was not to escape, however; his turn had now come. "I went," he says, "to Bourrienne's cabinet at once, and found that insupportable teetotum (totillon) of a private secretary much stirred up at the First Consul's delay. Seeing that he expected to get the reason from me, to avoid the ennui of his talk I plunged into a newspaper while waiting to be called. It was half an hour before Rustan appeared with a summons from his master. * Lucien's word is peloter, to play ball, or, idiomatically, to fill up time with something unimportant while one is waiting. |