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On the 16th the four Commissioners came for the first time to Fontainebleau, where the Emperor, who was still attended by Generals Drouot and Bertrand, gave to each a private audience on the following day. Though Napoleon received with coldness the Commissioners whom he had himself solicited, yet that coldness was far from being manifested in an equal degree to all.
"Oh, very clearly!" "So your property is seized. You make no opposition, and next week we shall have flaming posters on all the walls, telling Paris that the furniture, wardrobe, cashmeres, laces, and diamonds of Madame Lia d'Argeles will be sold without reserve, at public auction, in the Rue Drouot, with the view of satisfying the claims of her creditors.
He mechanically gave a few orders and returned to camp, and when he had reached the encampment of the guard, seated himself on a bench in front of his tent, with lowered head and clasped hands, and remained thus for nearly an hour without uttering a word. Since it was nevertheless essential that orders should be given for the next day, General Drouot approached,
Then rising from the table, and stepping up to General Drouot, with the marked intention of paying him a compliment which should at the same time convey a censure on the Marshals, "General," said he, patting him on the shoulder, "we only want a hundred men like you, and we should succeed." Drouot replied, with great presence of mind and modesty, "Rather say a hundred thousand, Sire."
Drouot, for example, had never served Louis XVIII., he had never worn the white cockade, he had left France with Napoleon for Elba, and had served the Emperor there. In 1815 he had fought under his own sovereign. After Waterloo he had exerted all his great influence, the greater from his position, to induce the Guard to retire behind the Loire, and to submit to the Bourbons.
He had been on the staff of an English paper in Paris, but had been dismissed for drunkenness; he still however did odd jobs for it, describing sales at the Hotel Drouot or the revues at music-halls. The life of Paris had got into his bones, and he would not change it, notwithstanding its squalor, drudgery, and hardship, for any other in the world.
Take the Hotel Drouot, now; they sometimes have three and four sales a week. Where can you get such things as you can here? In spite of all they say I maintain they're cheaper too, if you know the right places. I know plenty of places, but I keep them to myself. I'll tell you, if you like, as a particular favour; only you mustn't tell any one else.
Then rising from the table, and stepping up to General Drouot, with the marked intention of paying him a compliment which should at the same time convey a censure on the Marshals, "General," said he, patting him on the shoulder, "we only want a hundred men like you, and we should succeed." Drouot replied, with great presence of mind and modesty, "Rather say a hundred thousand, Sire."
However, I shall attend the sale, and I think I shall bid. And, in fact, your acquaintances won't fail to repair to the Hotel Drouot, and maybe your most intimate friends will yield to their generous impulses sufficiently to offer twenty sous for one of the dainty trifles on your etageres." Overcome with shame, Madame d'Argeles hung her head.
Observe that the instruction was only theoretical; doubtless out of respect for the policemen, they could not give entirely practical lessons to the future rioters who formed the ground-work of the business. The master or doctor of civil war could not go out with them, for instance, and practise in the Rue Drouot. But he had one resource, one way of getting out of it; namely, dominoes.
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