Page:The fortunes of Fifi (IA fortunesoffifi00seawiala).pdf/35

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know you, too. It is not likely that I can forget the hour in which I saw your honest, ugly face. You were the first man across at the terrible passage of the bridge of Lodi."

"Yes, Sire. And your Majesty was the second man across at the terrible passage of the bridge of Lodi."

"Ah, was it not frightful! We were shoulder to shoulder on the bridge that day, you and I. Your legs were longer than mine, else I should have been across first," the Emperor continued, smiling. "Berthier, here, was on the bridge, too. We had a devil of a time, eh, Berthier?"

Marshal Berthier, short of stature and plain of face, and the greatest chief of staff in Europe, smiled grimly at the recollection of that rush across the bridge. The Emperor again turned to Cartouche; he loved to talk to honest, simple fellows like Cartouche, and encouraged them to talk to him; so Cartouche replied, with a broad grin:

"Your Majesty was on foot, struggling with us tall fellows of the Thirty-second Grenadiers. At first we thought your Majesty was some little boy-officer who had got lost in the mêlée from his command; and then we saw that it was our general, and