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Updated: May 9, 2025
The dancers deserted their polka, the musicians stopped fiddling, the noisy supper-party in the next arbor abandoned their cold chicken and salad, and everybody ran to the scene of action. Dalrymple was on his feet in a moment; but Suzette held André back with both hands and implored him to stay. "Some mauvais sujets, no doubt, who refuse to pay the score," suggested Madame Roquet.
"Ah, but he danced so well, and I am so fond of waltzing, André!" The cloud gathered again, and an impatient reply was coming, when Dalrymple opportunely invited the whole party to a bowl of punch in an adjoining arbor, and himself led the way with Madame Roquet. The arbor was vacant, a waiter was placing the chairs, and the punch was blazing in the bowl.
From time to time Roquet entered and informed him of what was going on. Bonaparte listened in silence, deep in thought, marble in which a torrent of lava boiled. He received at the Elysée the same news that we received in the Rue Richelieu; bad for him, good for us.
The old lady then said her name was Madame Roquet, and that she rented a small farm about a mile and a half from Rouen; that Suzette was her only child; and that she had lost her "blessed man" about eight years ago. She next introduced the elderly couple as her brother Jacques Robineau and his wife, and informed us that Jacques was a tailor, and had a shop opposite the church of St. Maclou, "l
"Another glass of punch, Monsieur Robineau," interrupted Dalrymple. "Thank you, M'sieur, you are very good; well, as I was saying...." "Ah, bah, brother Jacques!" exclaimed Madame Roquet, impatiently, "don't give us that old story of the miller and the gray colt, this evening! We've all heard it a hundred times already. Sing us a song instead, mon ami!"
Whereupon Madame Roquet filled her own glass and mine, and Madame Robineau, less indulgent to her husband than herself, followed our example. Just at this moment, a confused hubbub of voices, and other sounds expressive of a fracas, broke out in the direction of the trees behind the orchestra.
It had evidently been ordered during one of the pauses in the dance, that it might be ready to the moment a little attention which called forth exclamations of pleasure from both Madame Roquet and Monsieur Robineau, and touched with something like a gleam of satisfaction even the grim visage of Monsieur Robineau's wife.
"Dâme!" whispered Madame Roquet, with a confidential attack upon my ribs that gave me a pain in my side for half an hour after, "my brother has the heart of a rabbit. He gives way to her in everything so much the worse for him. My blessed man, who was a saint of a husband, would have broken the bowl over my ears if I had dared to interfere between his glass and his mouth!"
"I wish with all my heart that you had had your favorite oysters as well!" When I came back to the arbor, I found the little party immensely happy, and a fresh bowl of punch just placed upon the table. André was sitting next to Suzette, as proud as a king. Madame Roquet, volubly convivial, was talking to every one.
He had gone back to his private room, had seated himself before the fire, with his feet on the hobs, motionless, and no one any longer approached him except Roquet. What was he thinking of? The twistings of the viper cannot be foreseen. What this man achieved on this infamous day I have told at length in another book. See "Napoleon the Little."
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