Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/202

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186
Napoleon.

begged a National Guard to let her get out to buy provisions; he refused harshly. The lady then held out an assignat, and asked him to be so kind as to get her a loaf; to which he replied: 'Do you think I am one of your old lackeys?' His brutality disgusted me; and having noticed that our servant Spire had placed in the pockets of the carriage sundry rolls, each lined with a sausage, I took two of them, and approaching the carriage where the children were, I threw these in when the guard's back was turned. Mother and children made such expressive signs of gratitude that I decided to victual all the prisoners, and accordingly took them all the stores that Spire had packed for the nourishment of four persons during the forty-eight hours which it would take us to reach Toulouse. We started without any suspicion on his part of the way in which I had disposed of them. The children kissed their hands to me, the parents bowed, and we set off. We had not gone a hundred yards, when my father, who, in his haste to escape from a sight which distressed him, had not taken a meal at the inn, felt hungry and asked for the provisions. Spire mentioned the pockets in which he had placed them. My father and M. Gault rummaged the whole carriage, and found nothing. My father pitched into Spire; Spire from the coach-box swore by all the fiends that he had victualled the carriage for two days. I was rather in a quandary; however, not liking to let