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He strode across the Grande Rue with rapid steps and soon was in the midst of the tumult and uproar of the city; there he hailed a small boy, who conducted him to the Rue Maqua. There it was that in the last century a grand-uncle of the present Delaherche had built the monumental structure that had remained in the family a hundred and sixty years.
"Oh, M. Delaherche! isn't this dreadful! Here, quick! this way, if you would like to see the Emperor." On the left of the corridor a door stood ajar, and through the narrow opening a glimpse could be had of the sovereign, who had resumed his weary, anguished tramp between the fireplace and the window.
"Take that thing away from him; it is dangerous!" Mme. Delaherche took possession of the sword. With a feeling of compassionate respect for the poor colonel's grief and despair she did not conceal it, as her son bade her do, but with a single vigorous effort snapped it across her knee, with a strength of which she herself would never have supposed her poor old hands capable.
While Delaherche was raising himself on tiptoe and trying to peer through the windows of the rez-de-chaussee, an old woman at his side, some poor day-worker of the neighborhood, with shapeless form and hands calloused and distorted by many years of toil, was mumbling between her teeth: "An emperor I should like to see one once just once so I could say I had seen him."
Delaherche remonstrated angrily; but by that time the Emperor had disappeared. The hoarse murmur of the Meuse continued uninterruptedly; a wailing lament, inexpressibly mournful, seemed to pass above them through the air, where the darkness was gathering intensity.
Gilberte, satiated with sights of horror, unable longer to endure the sad spectacle of blood and tears, remained upstairs with her uncle, the colonel, leaving to Mme. Delaherche the care of moistening fevered lips and wiping the cold sweat from the brow of the dying. Rapidly climbing the stairs to his terrace, Delaherche endeavored to form some idea for himself of how matters stood.
What between the damage that his reputation as a man of bravery and politeness would inevitably suffer should he desert Henriette in her time of trouble, and his disinclination to again face the iron hail on the Bazeilles road, Delaherche was certainly in a very unpleasant predicament.
Delaherche, altho he was an ardent Bonapartist at the time of the plébiscite, had admitted after our early defeats that the government was responsible for some mistakes; but he stood up for the dynasty, compassionating and excusing Napoleon III, deceived and betrayed as he was by every one.
They averted their eyes, not wishing to see the rest; motionless and trembling they stood locked in each other's arms, notwithstanding the little love there was between them. At no time during the day had the artillery thundered more loudly than now. It was three o'clock, and Delaherche declared angrily that he gave it up he could not understand it.
There was a brief convulsive movement of the legs; the youthful, tranquil expression of the face remained, stamped there unalterably by the hand of death. It was the first casualty, and the accountant was startled by the crash of the musket falling and rebounding from the stone pavement of the courtyard. "Ah, I have seen enough, I am going," stammered Delaherche.
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