Free The Complete Brigadier Gerard Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle Page B

challenging the French cavalry. My word, he was a frightened man when he understood how near he had been to killing the celebrated Brigadier Gerard.
    Well, the road was clear, and about three o’clock in the afternoon I was at St Denis, though it took me along two hours to get from there to Paris, for the road was blocked with commissariat waggons and guns of the artillery reserve, which was going north to Marmont and Mortier. You cannot conceive the excitement which my appearance in such costume made in Paris, and when I came to the Rue de Rivoli I should think I had a quarter of a mile of folk riding or running behind me. Word had got about from the dragoons (two of whom had come with me), and everybody knew about my adventures and how I had come by my uniform. It was a triumph−men shouting and women waving their handkerchiefs and blowing kisses from the windows.
    Although I am a man singularly free from conceit, still I must confess that, on this one occasion, I could not restrain myself from showing that this reception gratified me. The Russian’s coat had hung very loose upon me, but now I threw out my chest until it was as tight as a sausage-skin. And my little sweetheart of a mare tossed her mane and pawed with her front hoofs, frisking her tail as though she said, ‘We’ve done it together this time. It is to us that commissions should be intrusted.’ When I kissed her between the nostrils as I dismounted at the gate of the Tuileries there was as much shouting as if a bulletin had been read from the Grand Army.
    I was hardly in costume to visit a king; but, after all, if one has a soldierly figure one can do without that. I was shown up straight away to Joseph, whom I had often seen in Spain. He seemed as stout, as quiet, and as amiable as ever. Talleyrand was in the room with him, or I suppose I should call him the Duke of Benevento, but I confess that I like old names best. He read my letter when Joseph Buonaparte handed it to him, and then he looked at me with the strangest expression in those funny little, twinkling eyes of his.
    ‘Were you the only messenger?’ he asked.
    ‘There was one other, sire,’ said I. ‘Major Charpentier, of the Horse Grenadiers.’
    ‘He has not yet arrived,’ said the King of Spain.
    ‘If you had seen the legs of his horse, sire, you would not wonder at it,’ I remarked.
    ‘There may be other reasons,’ said Talleyrand, and he gave that singular smile of his.
    Well, they paid me a compliment or two, though they might have said a good deal more and yet have said too little. I bowed myself out, and very glad I was to get away, for I hate a court as much as I love a camp. Away I went to my old friend Chaubert, in the Rue Miromesnil, and there I got his hussar uniform, which fitted me very well. He and Lisette and I supped together in his rooms, and all my dangers were forgotten. In the morning I found Violette ready for another twenty-league stretch. It was my intention to return instantly to the Emperor’s headquarters, for I was, as you may well imagine, impatient to hear his words of praise, and to receive my reward.
    I need not say that I rode back by a safe route, for I had seen quite enough of Uhlans and Cossacks. I passed through Meaux and Château Thierry, and so in the evening I arrived at Rheims, where Napoleon was still lying. The bodies of our fellows and of St Prest’s Russians had all been buried, andI could see changes in the camp also. The soldiers looked better cared for; some of the cavalry had received remounts, and everything was in excellent order. It is wonderful what a good general can effect in a couple of days.
    When I came to the headquarters I was shown straight into the Emperor’s room. He was drinking coffee at a writing-table, with a big plan drawn out on paper in front of him. Berthier and Macdonald were leaning, one over each shoulder, and he was talking so quickly that I don’t believe that either of them could catch a half of what he