Her Majesty the Empress said, with an angelic smile, that she had heard my misfortunes spoken of.

'Oh, Madame!' I replied, 'such a moment as this compensates them a hundred fold.'-- 'You must come and dance at the Tuilleries next winter.'-- 'Alas, Madame, I have never danced but to the music of cannon; but I shall spare no effort to please you! I will study the art of Vestris."-- '_I_'ve managed to learn the quadrille very nicely,' joined in Leblanc.
"The Emperor deigned to express his happiness at getting back an officer like me, who had yesterday, so to speak, taken part in the finest campaigns of the century, and retained all the traditions of the great war.

This encouraged me.

I no longer feared to remind him of the famous principle of the good old time--to treat for peace only in capitals! 'Take care!' said he; 'it was on the strength of that principle that the allied armies twice came to settle the basis of peace at Paris.'-- 'They'll not come here again,' cried I, 'without passing over my body!' I dwelt upon the troubles apt to come from too much intimacy with England.

I expressed a hope of at once proceeding to the conquest of the world.