THE autumn of the year 1803 was one of the finest during the Empire Period, as we call the earliest years of the nineteenth century. Rain had fallen in October; the fields were refreshed; and the green leaves were still on the trees in mid-November. Wherefore people were beginning to believe in a covenant between heaven and Bonaparte, then recently declared Consul for life. This belief was one among many to which he owed his magical influence; and (strange coincidence!) when the sun failed him in 1812, his prosperity came to an end.

Towards four o’clock in the afternoon on the fifteenth of November 1803 the sunlight fell like a crimson dust over the crests of two double rows of ancient elms in a long and lordly avenue—and lighted up the sand and the bents of grass about one of those vast circular spaces which you may see near country seats; for land in former timees was worth so little that it could be sacrificed to ornament. The air was so pure, the evening so mild, that the family from the lodge were sitting out of doors as if it were summer-time. A man in a green canvas shooting-ocat with green buttons, breeches of the same material, linen garters reaching to the knees, and thin-soled walking shoes, was busy cleaning a rifle with that punctilious care which a skilled sportsman bestows on his weapon in leisure moments. This man, however, had neither pouch nor game-bag, nor any of a sportsman’s accoutrements, and an ill-disguised dread seems to weigh upon the minds of the two women who sat watching him. Indeed, if any one else had been looking on at this scene from behind one of the bushes, he must have shuddered with the man’s wife and the old mother-in-law. Clearly, no sportsman takes such minute pains for a day’s shooting; nor, in the department of the Aube, does he carry a heavy rifle.