"How he remembers us now!" thought Jacqueline.
She thought too of him who had sent the legions. The entire fabric of Napoleon's dream of Mexican empire was builded on the dismemberment of the American Union. But, as the Southerners began so well by themselves, Napoleon had left them to do his work alone. He just failed of genius.
"Oh, mon petit, _bien_ petit Napoleon," she cried in her soul, "how terribly you have miscalculated!"
The room had filled with murmurs, with awed whispering, with frightened questioning looks at one's neighbor, with ambitions and hates gone panic-stricken. Driscoll came forward. The fellow of homespun held the Empire in his hand, if they but knew it. "Now let me deliver my message," he said earnestly. "And, afterward, on with the drum-head, I'll not complain."
"There, there," spoke the unseeing monarch, though affected by the dignity of sorrow, "you shall have no cause. I came here, meaning to pardon."
"Pardon?" came the Tiger's growl. "Your Majesty saves so many enemies, does he fear that soon he will have none left?"
"Perhaps, Colonel Dupin, since my imperial brother, Napoleon, sends me so efficient a bloodhound. But I thought the prisoners were already tried and condemned. That must come first, of course. Yet We are constrained to find another judge, one without preconceived notions of guilt, to hold the court martial. Ah yes, as Monsieur Éloin here suggests, I name Colonel Lopez.--Colonel Lopez, you will stay behind with a company of your own men. Finish the trial to-night, if you can, and overtake me before I reach the city.--Colonel Dupin, I have to request yourself and men as escort, to replace the Dragoons left with Colonel Lopez. And you, Mademoiselle d'Aumerle, shall have a carriage. We start this afternoon. You will be ready, mademoiselle?"
"Is Your Majesty quite resolved," Jacqueline asked in French, "that the American must be tried? He can easily be found guilty, I warn Your Majesty."
"Reason enough that he should not be tried, since he is not guilty. But perhaps Your Majesty has thought of sending him under guard to the frontier, back to his own country, where he would not longer be an annoyance?"
"My dear young lady," returned the Emperor, "it seems that you expect me to blot out the processes of law simply because even I cannot make them infallible. But you do not answer my question. I offer you protection to the City?"