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A LITTLE LESS THAN GODS
A Napoleonic ITale






I






A Partial List of Other Books by
FORD MADOX FORD
F IC TION
THE GOOD SOLDIER
SOME DO NOT...
NO MORE PARADES
A MAN COULD STAND UP
THE LAST POST
BELLES-LETTRES
A MIRROR TO FRANCE
NEW YORK IS NOT AMERICA
POETRY
NEW POEMS


z












_._ __ L_ iY_ II__ __ _1_
----— l —P~ ---sarulI —~pRC


''


FORD MADOX FORD


'A LITTLE LESS
THAN GODS
MCMXXVIII
NEW YORK    is A
THE VIKING PRESS *
MCMXXVIII




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-  --     --             ----  -  -


I -PC L_ II




Copyright 1928 by
FoRD MADOX FORD
Printed in U. S. A.
Published in October, 1928
Second printing, December, 1928..
~




To


RENE KATHERINE CLARISSA DAVID
My dear,
When you were in pigtails and adorably starched, stiff
little frilly things, and I, oh dear, as slender as a gazelle,
we walked in Central Park and you asked me to tell you a
tale.    Here it is, then, your Tale.
The penalties with which you threatened me if I did
not then entertain you with diverting and mendacious inventions were many and singular. Like the tailor's son in
the fairy tale that you will not let me quote, I evaded
them by running away... to Philadelphia. And therethis is the curious part of it-that evening, sitting on the
stoop of Miss Mary Moss, I heard the story of this one
that at last I lay at your feet. Miss Mary Moss was an
amiable lady, at that time the literary dictatrix of the
Quaker City and its environs, and the stoop was in
Chestnut Hill. So I sat there gazing into the boskage and
the night and listening to the nightingales-but they cannot have been nightingales, they must have been katydids!
No doubt because I must have been thinking of you and
your Tale, and because I was sitting between a daughter
of Stonewall Jackson- and a niece of General Sherman,
they come back to me as nightingales.... At any rate,
the talk falling on old days, the Southern lady told how
in her youth she had seen-or perhaps it was only that
V




Vi


Dedication


her mother had seen-in New Orleans an old, mild gentleman who possessed a singular sword and was accustomed, gently and unemotionally, to assert that he was...Michael Ney, soon to be a little dust! He did not, as
we should say today, propose to do anything about it. If
you believed him he was faintly gratified, but if you signified that you did not he was never angered.
It was particularly the sword that impinged upon my
sensibilities-for, if the old gentleman were not Michael
Ney, how should he know about the sword?
Anyhow, this story seems to me to be particularly
yours. I have carried it about with me for many years always meaning to have a shot at it, and in the end it was
in your city that I began it and in your city that I
ended it.
At one time it was to have become a collaboration with
another writer, but the years went on and, I going to Another Place than here or the usual haunts of collaborators,
that writer took on the story alone. But a lamented death
cut short his story, so I considered myself at liberty to
take it on again myself, and the psychological moment
seeming to me-on an occasion that you will rememberto have arrived about three years ago, here then at last
it is.
The story of Michael Ney was always in my mind destined to be seen through the eyes of a character whose
history I might well have related to you in Central Park,
for it had enormously impressed my own childish mind.
In England, that is to say, near Malvern Wells is a great
hill called the Herefordshire Beacon and in the shadow of
the Herefordshire Beacon towards the West is a Manor




] bedication                vii
whose name will not come back to me. Let us call it
Scrope Hall. I was in Malvern Wells for the holidays of
Queen Victoria's first Jubilee year.... How old was I
then? You at any rate were not here in this world nor yet
to come for many years!... And wandering through
that hop- and apple-country I came one day on the old
manor. In the hall were many portraits, no doubt of surpassing artistic value. But what impressed the boy of
thirteen was one that was hung with its face to the wall.
And on the back of the panel was the inscription:
VANISHED INTO THE AMERICAS IN 1815 THE YEAR
OF WATERLOO
From what I could gather from the butler, this was a
1t portrait of an eldest son of the family owning the manor
-an eldest son who had committed the crime of admiring
Napoleon and doing his best to prevent war. He was said
to have fled to this country and to have founded here a
flourishing family-in Louisiana, I think.... At any
rate that young man-whose face even in counterfeit I
never saw-was always destined in my mind to be the
person through whose eyes you should see The Hundred
Days. And when I looked up his history in County Records long afterwards I found that part of the discredit
that there attached to him arose from a sentimental misfortune such as here you may read. So the story is in
effect in some sort a page from intimate history.
I must however warn you against taking too literally as
fact the mere opinions expressed by the persons in this
narrative. Madame de Fre'jus was a lady of strong views
and such ladies will colour their accounts of the actions




V* i


Dedication


of others. Napoleon was a politician; the Duke of Wellington had a bad memory for names.... So if Madame
de Frejus is hard on, say, Benjamin Constant, or the Duke
of Wellington thinks that Ney was arrested at Auxerre,
or Napoleon states that your country and mine were at
war in March 1815, remember that politics, prejudices
and failures of memory will come creeping in. Nor, for
the matter of that, if, say the late Lord Kitchener or
Regimental Sergeant-Major Evans of my battalion of the
Welsh Regiment could have seen Napoleon's march from
Frejus to Cannes, would they have as much admired the
marching and discipline of the forces as did George Feilding. Feilding however was a hero-worshipper. There are
perhaps worse vehicles for the conveyance of illusions.
The business of all novelists is to trick you into believing you have taken part in the scenes that they render.
But the historical novelist is on the horns of a dilemma:
he must either present you with the superficial view of
history given by the serious and scientific Historian than
whom no one is more misleading, or diving deeper he must
present you with the mendacities in which mankind perforce indulges when treating of contemporary events, or
its immediate fellows. For who are we to know the truth?
When you and I-heaven help us! -talk about our
historic present, how do we render it? I remember you,
some years ago aboard ship, giving me an account of one
of your present presidential candidates-an account
which lively and diverting as it was will probably little
square with the verdict of Posterity. And I must have
given you in my time accounts of-let us say-battles
which will differ widely either from our or Enemy official




Dedication                   ix
accounts. So if in future years a Historical Novelist should
take you for his delightful heroine and me-save the
mark!- for his central character... if that historical
novelist, so on the one hand perspicacious and on the
other dumb! —should choose to present our present by
means of our conversations, how wouldn't he differ from
the conscientious future Annalist of our poor little Today!
He may nevertheless convey a sense of the Truth truer
than that reached by the industrious compilings of the
serious-and so portentous! — Chronicler! For I bet that
your sense —not your details-of mediaeval life came to
you from Scott and your mental colouration of seventeenth-century France from The Three Musketeers, and
that, fill in your details afterwards how you may have,
your sense and your mental colouration are truer to the
real right thing in history than all the mole-work lucubrations of the most learned of contemporary Puffendorfiuses. Or should I write Puffendorfii? For the worst historical novelist is better for giving you a vicarious sense
of experience than the most industrious of compilers of
scientic evidence. And the novelist is there to give you a
sense of vicarious experience. What without him would
you know?
That being his job he is almost forced to make you view
his History through the eyes of a character supposedly
present at the scenes that he renders. But as, disrespectfully, I have hinted above, no one is so inaccurate as an
eyewitness. I have read I do not know how many accounts
of Napoleon's escape from Elba and his subsequent march
on Paris, each written by a participant in those events;
yet each account differs inextricably from every other.




x                 Dedication
Above all they all differ entirely from the final accounts
arrived at by the Official Historians. So what is the poor
historical novelist to do? I suppose if he were veracitymad rather than an artist he would put a "?" after most
speeches of his characters and a "sic" after the rest!
Anyhow, in the end, the proof of the pudding remains
in the eating. And I have the consolation of thinking that
if your hypercritical taste turns from these pages that are
laid at your feet you at least can take refuge in the writings of authors more attractive.
I on the other hand am condemned to remain for ever
Humbly and obediently your servant,
F. M. F.
Off Nantucket, JULY 28, 1928.




PART
I




I




CHAPTER ONE


Y   OUNG man," his Britannic Majesty's Representative upon Elba remarked, "-for that you are
young my long acquaintance with your family and the fact
that I was present at your christening sufficiently assure
me, and I see no reason to doubt that you are a manif you should now make any violent manifestations of
sympathies or commit yourself to any other step, you may
well find that you will have cause for regret such as the
rest of your life shall be insufficient to obliterate. I appeal
to Mr. Assheton Smith to corroborate me." Mr. Assheton
Smith, however, was engaged in taking snuff from a
heavily jewelled box and young Feilding burst in hotly:
"If I did not now express those generous feelings that
should belong to every Englishman of honour at the contemplation of this unjustly caged eagle, I might well regret
it for the rest of my days upon earth. To do anything else
would be to stand confessed the accomplice of those who
have treacherously bound the arms of a demi-god and
contemplate his assassination."
He was in the scarlet, with heavily fringed gold epaulettes and white worsted galoons, of the Monmouthshire
Yeomanry. The natural grace of his actions was impeded
by the fact that he held in front of his chest, as gentlemen in church hold high hats, a high, black shako deco3




4


A Little Less than Gods


rated with the royal arms in silver and a pom-pom of
scarlet worsted. The British envoy was in the blue Windsor field uniform-a long blue coat, slightly cut away,
white kersimere breeches, and. white silk stockings. He
wore several orders in high relief. Mr. Assheton Smith
was in something that resembled the Windsor uniform,
except that to indicate his contempt for privy councillors,
members of the cabinet, the diplomatic body and such,
his silver gilt buttons bore his own initials; and to indicate that he despised the peerage he had neither accepted
nor did he wear orders, ribbons or stars. In revenge he
had on his fob-chain a great collection of massive gold
seals. His hair was fair and curled elegantly; his face more
disdainful than seemed probable; he maintained his eyes
half closed, and his white, very long hands managed his
snuff-taking with singular deliberation. The dark, redbrown paint of the tall, long room had mildewed and
fallen in places; there were upon the wall too few candle
sconces to illuminate it very thoroughly. Young girls, their
dresses very short, their hair almost shorter, ran as young
girls will in and out of the room as if in quest of one another, uttering little ejaculations and silhouetted against
the brighter light of the doorway giving into another room.
From there came the thrilling of faint, light stringed instruments.
"Stap me," Mr. Assheton Smith finally said, "it is our
duty to be grateful to God that we are Britons; but I
can see no difference in degree of upstartness between on
the one hand Wellesley-or, I beg his pardon, what is he?
Marquis or Duke-between, then, this Wellesley or Wellington and this Corsican. For myself I would more will



A  Little Less than Gods              5
ingly call Bonaparte 'Sire' or 'Majesty' than the other
'Your Grace'! It is the duty of men of birth to stand together against younger sons, military adventurers, and
the rabble, but if a man be one of these, or no Englishman, it makes little matter to me whether he be Louis
XVIII, king by Divine Right, or Bonaparte, Emperor by
the love of his people. What, for instance, are the Romanoffs, as they call themselves, who sit on the throne of
Russia.? What is this Alexander but an anointed and
gloomy upstart prone under the thumb of a designing
hussy? He is Emperor, but God knows who was his
father. I have seen him, an incomparable, gloomy fool,
possessing neither language nor deportment, I detest him
as much as I detest this Wellesley or Wellington or whatever he is. Marquis of Douro, no doubt."
He paused to replace his snuff box in his pocket and so
great was the respect which he inspired in his companions
on account of his birth, his enormous wealth, his disdain,
and his reputation as a nonchalant duelist, gamester and
follower of hounds, that neither of them spoke for fear
of interrupting him. Nor did either of them consider his
remarks to be either vainglorious or foolish.
"Still, sir," the diplomat said, when he had paused long
enough to see that the milor did not intend to continue,
"you would not indulge in treason yourself nor advocate
its being indulged in by this young man, the heir of our
old friend, Squire Feilding?"
"Treason!" young Feilding exclaimed, hot with his
youth and his admiration for one of the attendants upon
Madame Mere, the mother of Napoleon, "what is this
talk of treason? I vow..."




6         A  Little Less than Gods
But a gesture of the white right hand of Assheton Smith
interrupted him.
"I perceive no treason," he said dryly, "in proclaiming
that by proxy we are treating this Bonaparte with execrable shabbiness and by allowing the Bourbons and
Romanoffs to maintain him here upon this barren rock
we expose him to such great danger of assassination that
it is all one with murder. For myself if he could overthrow
that Alexander and this Wellesley, I should be gladder
still."
The British Representative drew himself slightly together.
"Surely, Mr. Smith," he said, "that would be a treasonable gladness that should not be expressed before
this young hothead, for Napoleon could only defeat the
Duke of Wellington over the bodies of your countrymen."
Mr. Smith answered with disdainful nonchalance.
"No sir," he said, "I yield to none in loyalty to my
country and I agree that maxima debetur reverentia
pueris. But if this Corsican upstart-as I hope he mayshould escape from this rock and if Wellington, as too I
hope may be the case, should fail to induce the government to engage with its former low allies against this man,
Wellington as an upstart Parliament man would fall. He
would plunge us into wars to add another strawberry leaf
to his coronet. And wars are monstrous inconvenient
things. I assure you that during the late one my revenue
from my slate quarries was much diminished owing to
want of shipping.... But, for this boy, I see no reason
why he should not express a generous enthusiasm for this




A  Little Less than Gods             7
Bonaparte-for I will admit that Madame de Frejus is a
monstrous pretty piece."
The young man choked in his throat.
"Sir," he exclaimed when he had recovered himself,
"do you mean that my sentiments are nothing but parroted repetitions of that lady's opinions?"
"You have it, my lad," Mr. Smith replied kindly. "What
else could have retained you for a quarter upon this rock?
And you might have done worse I say that as a very
good friend of your father's, for at least you are not
squandering his estates in the rake-helly night resorts of
La Ville Lumiere-as they call Paris because of the expenditure of a few beggarly tallow candles."
The music had ceased so that the emotions of the young
man had full play. Groups of maidens and youths who
fetched glasses of negus began to form in the apartment.
It was true that the young man had been three months
upon that island, but not even to himself had he formulated his attachment. Madame de Frejus, the daughter of
the emigre, Marquis de Dinart-Perigord, a former very
close friend of his father, Squire Feilding, and married to
a rather suspect financier such as those troubled times had
brought to the fore... Helene de Frejus, then, was an
attendant on Madame Letitia, the mother, and Princess
Pauline, the sister, of Bonaparte, then King of Elba.
And it was true too that his utterances in hot championship
of the august exile and in hot denunciation of the treatment meted out to him by the Bourbons, Hapsburgs,
Hohenzollerns, Romanoffs, and their minions who were
Bonaparte's jailers-his fierce and splendid utterances at
whose eloquence he was at times himself astonished, were




8


A Little Less than Gods


mostly repetitions of speeches that had been made either
by the Princess Pauline or Madame de Frejus. But till "
that moment he could not have told you for which of them
he was ready to lay down his life. Nay, he might have
been ready to lay down his life for the Emperor's mother.
He had lived for three months amidst an agreeable flood
of petticoat emotions. The Princess Pauline with an
oblique glance of her dark, oval eyes could make his heart
beat confoundedly; a smile from the frank, fair, almost
English face of Madame la Baronne de Erejus, who
was nearer his own age, could warm the whole of his body;
the dry, practical humour of the Emperor's mother was a
daily source of admiration to him. She was august, commanding, dry, withered, sardonic, shrewd. Then too there
were the almost daily communings that, seated beneath
his favourite olive tree, the Emperor allowed to him,
George Feildingl It was a period of delight.
He, George Feilding, was of goodish family: there might
be none better in England, which is the same as to say in
Europe or the habitable globe. It was true too that the
Demi-God made no bones about his desire to be favourably reported on in England. So Feilding perhaps deserved
the condescension that Napoleon bestowed upon him;
nevertheless he could not but marvel at times at the set
of circumstances that brought him to stand in that garden,
having the blue Mediterranean behind his back, the
whisper of the olive leaves in his ears, and before him not
only the steep mountains of which Elba formed the peak
-not only those but the Conqueror of the World.. a
peak amongst men such as Alexander, Caesar, Hercules
or Timour the Tartar had not reached to.




A Little Less than Gods


9


He would sit there in a willow-work chair or on a bench
that was built round the great old olive tree, in repose.
His eye would not flash but neither was it veiled. It was
contemplative; but sometimes it sparkled a little as when
he talked of his plantations of mulberry trees for the good
of the subjects of his tiny realms. For it was such things
that occupied the thoughts of this hero in repose and
aroused his enthusiasms, though every now and then his
wrath would rise up terrible for a moment at the thought
of the sufferings of his France under the grotesque and
detestable' Bourbons. Of the fact that Louis the Eighteenth
did not pay him the beggarly pittance that was allotted to
him by treaty he would speak with humour rather than
with anger. The king of France was gross, heavy, besotted,
indolent and so fat and infirm that he could scarcely walk.
Perhaps the gout would not permit him to hold a pen so
that he could not sign the mandate for payment of his debt
to Napoleon.
On the plan of Metternich and others at the Congress of
Vienna that was interminably sitting-to kidnap him and
export him to St. Helena-he spoke with mild contempt.
He had his thousand soldiers. And the word of England!
England was all-powerful in the counsels of the nations
and was proud of her honour. He would be well content to
settle as a private gentleman in England. If England had
supported the presence of Louis and his crowds of beggarly, parasitic emigres why should she not welcome the
residence of him, General Bonaparte, who, in spite of
the robberies of the Bourbons, could yet at least pay his
way —as witness his expenditure for the good of the subjects of his little realm. The plantations, the rebuilt for



IO


A Little Less than Gods


tresses, the reopening of the iron mines! All these he had
set going out of his private purse. He could assure Mr.
Feilding that if he should ever bring himself to leave that
island his subjects would not be those in the world that
least regretted his departure. And he would glance down
at the sleeve of his shabby old coat, as if to emphasize the
fact that, though the Bourbons caused him personally to
go short of raiment, bedding, candle-sconces, tapers,
kitchen utensils, saddlery or servants' liveries, his subjects did not suffer. The disgrace to the Bourbons was
what was to be emphasized. They owed tribute to the
hero in repose-nay, they owed hospitality to an honoured
guest! They showed the world the spectacle of the hero
of Ulm and Jena short of under-linen!
Once he wore the all-famous green coat of Marengono doubt as a treat for young Feilding, or perhaps the
better to dream of past discharges of artillery and of the
smoke of combat, for that day he had seemed almost a
dreamer and spoke little. He had no doubt his days of preoccupation or bad health. Days when his hand remained
continually in the opening of his waistcoat between the
first and third buttons from the top and when young
Feilding would move away unnoticed to hear Madame de
Frejus over her sewing or Princess Pauline over her book
take up the engrossing tale of their devotion, their hopes
or their sisterly love....
When he reported these days of preoccupation to the
British Resident, Sir Neil would say:
"You see. That confirms me!"
He held the opinion that Napoleon was fast sinking into
lethargy and sloth. He held that opinion firmly in spite




A  Little Less than Gods             I
of the energetic protests of the younger man, but at times
he would confess himself puzzled and alarmed. As he
expressed it, the old fox might simulate a state of palsy
in order to mask some design.... A descent on France.
Or Italy? Who knows?
At that too the young Feilding was indignant. Who
could suspect the Demi-God of dissimulation? As well
think to conceal the thunderbolts of Jove himself. Look
how frankly he talked. Look at his projects for the betterment of the island, all in embryo! Would such a man put
his hand to the plough and then leave the task? As young
Feilding read Napoleon he was a philosopher, retired from
the shock of war and content to recline forever beneath
the symbolical shade of the olive whilst watching over
and guiding the pursuits of his adoring peasantry.
Sir Neil would say:
"It may be so. Who can tell? There are things that
disquiet me. Why did he send away four hundred of his
soldiers? As emissaries into France? Or Italy? Why this
embargo on the shipping? He professes to fear for his
personal safety and will not let ship leave the island
until everyone come by ship is examined, searched, produces credentials and the rest. And there are other
things...
Young Feilding remained hot in the illusion of Napoleon's determination to be for the rest of his life the
benevolent, rustic philosopher. That was a thing fashionable in those days. Sir Neil stuck to his guns-of doubt.tempered by belief in the Emperor's diseased lethargy.
The difference rose to a practical quarrel on the arrival
of Mr. Assheton Smith's yacht on the afternoon of that




I2


A Little Less than Gods


day of the dance. For Assheton Smith's beautiful, feluccarigged yacht was reputed to be the fastest vessel afloat on
those seas, as she was the most luxuriously appointed. The
famous milor whose glories, spleen and disdain were the
talk of the world had touched at the island for a visit of
a few hours. He designed to view its scenery, the appointments of Napoleon's parody of a palace, and to exchange
a condescending word or two with the distinguished exile.
For Assheton Smith, who was the richest commoner in the
world, liked to be not only the most admired man in such
company as he deigned to frequent, but also to be the best
informed on any topic of the day, so that with a lazily
dropped-in word or two he could settle any controversy
that arose. Nay, for that purpose he had a special bodyservant, Petrucci, half valet, half physician, but above all
gatherer of gossip about the families of distinction in any
place to which his travels took him. There was no place of
public entertainment or back door of a noble family along
the shores of the Mediterranean that would not see the
black locks of Petrucci if his master's yacht touched there.
So the Resident, Sir Neil Campbell, was minded to take
advantage of the presence of the fast-sailing yacht to pay
a quick visit to the mainland in order to consult some of
his brother diplomats at Genoa and to send a courier with
dispatches to Vienna. He was to leave in the early morning taking advantage of the dawn wind.
Another circumstance had increased Sir Neil's perturbation. Napoleon had that day given notice to all his servants at the palace. This might mean merely what he was
reported to have said it meant. In lethargic despair of
receiving his pittance from the French sovereign he was




A Little Less than Gods


I3


cutting down his expenses and meant henceforth to dwell
in his little private residence outside the town of Porto
Ferrajo; or, fearing that an assassin might introduce himself into a large company of domestics, he was determined
to reduce his staff to such as had served him all his life.
Or it might mean that he was determined to absent himself
from the island for good. If that was his determination the
only place to which he could go was the continent of
Europe. And there...
So the Resident had determined to avail himself of the
hospitality of Mr. Smith. At the dance he had drawn
young Feilding into the large, mournful room in order to
enjoin upon him that he should keep his eyes open during
his, Sir Neil's, absence and, if necessary and possible,
communicate to him anything he should observe that appeared a sign of Napoleon's determination to make a
descent upon the mainland.
The young man had flown out indignantly. He was not
a damned spy I
Sir Neil took snuff-a marvellous aid to those who in
that era would appear reflective or shrewd.
"Young sir," he said, "for three months you have been
content to play what I will call counter-spy. That is to say
that you have reported to me what Napoleon desired as
to his habits, pursuits and designs. You have consented to
be his tool, no doubt unwittingly. Now I suggest that wittingly you be of service to your country's representative
and so to your country. Either that or report to your regiment."
At that, hot rage overtook our young man and he remained tempestuous throughout that interview.




14       A   Little Less than Gods
Was he to be miscalled, reprimanded like a child of
twelve, haughtily and dryly admonished before the second
demi-god of his acquaintance? For if Napoleon came first
Mr. Assheton Smith was only less blindingly luminous.
When Sir Neil had brought the milor into that dance,
when he had seen him incline his head before Madame
Mere-and Princess Pauline and Madame de Frejus,
standing in a group beneath a small dais-the young
man's heart had stopped. It was amazing. Here in this
remote island, under the roof of this dilapidated mock
palace were gathered the two greatest potentates of the
world-and himself!
Now he was being admonished before his hero, whose
attire, manners, disdain, resources, horsemanship were the
cynosure of the world of ton! He felt his features become
coldly convulsed, his brows bend with rage. His foot
tapped continuously. He was awaiting only an opening to
deliver a challenge to a duel with Sir Neil.
Delightful relief came, however, to his troubled spirit
with these words of Mr. Smith's.
"Sir," he said to Sir Neil, "I think you are unreasoningly hard on this young man, the son of our old friend.
You take advantage of the fact that you were present at
his christening to address him as if you were his godfather and he still an infant. For myself I had not the
honour to be present at his christening, being upon Hounslow Heath at an encounter of bruisers whose names I
have forgotten. But I sent a mug... I sent a mug..."
He wavered a moment in his speech. A silhouette, a
little obese, its head bowed, its step slow, its hands clasped
behind the back, entered against the brilliant light with



A Little Less than 'Gods


15


out, and in the more dim illumination of that large hall became visible as Napoleon-truly in the green coat of
Marengo. He did not however approach them, they being
deep within the room, and- his head bowed so that he might
very well not have seen them. He stopped before a couple
against the far wall -a blue soldier and a young girl in a
pink gown-and, having pinched the soldier's ear and
just bobbed his head to the young woman-unfolded a
scroll of paper 'and held it up before their eyes. He could
be seen to smile and they to laugh.
It was not, however, for an Assheton Smith to interrupt
his speech at a mere first sight of a Napoleon, and he continued:
"For myself I am willing to stand sponsor for the
honour of this young man."
"Why," said Sir Neil, "for the matter of that so am I.
It is his prudence of which I stand in fear. I wish he were
back in England, or with his regiment wherever that may
be."
"That I do not," Mr. Smith said with as much heat as he
could permit himself to exhibit. "Mr. Feilding is not only
an eldest son, he is an only one. Soldiering is no career for
a man of parts. That as you know is my settled opinion,
so talk to me no more of regiments and camps. They are
good enough places for bastards of men of quality and for
younger sons.`
The Emperor was proceeding very slowly around the
wall of the apartment. For the most part he was lost in
reverie but every now and then he stopped to speak to one
or another of the groups that, upon his entry, had ranged
themselves around the walls, to dissolve again into groups




i6        A  Little Less than
when he had passed. For, he having been reported to be
much engaged with the affairs of the island and the dismissal of his servants, this was his first appearance at the
ball.
Mr. Assheton Smith addressed himself to the young
man who was now bridling with pleasure but all unconscious of the Napoleonic progress since his back was
towards the interior of the hall.
"Indeed," Mr. Smith said to him, "I marvel that your
father should let you, his heir, embrace this low career."
"Why, sir," the young man said, "I desired to see life
and worried my father. With all Europe in turmoil foreign travel was difficult except in arms."
"Well," Mr. Smith replied conciliatorily, "it was proper
that you should see life, but it was distressing that you
should see it in such low company as that of Wellington
and his bullies in the Peninsular. Had I been your father
I would not have let you. I would rather see you among the
cullies in rat-pits and amongst the bruisers on Hounslow
or Newmarket Heaths. Still, we will let bygones be bygones. You cannot say that I am stubborn. And to conclude: that you are of goodish birth I know and you appear to be a gallant and spirited cockerel. So I will say"and he made a slight inclination to Sir Neil: "I am equally
ready to be your sponsor as to honour or any other scrape
you may get into in the course you are pursuing. Further
I will make a bet with Sir Neil of a thousand pounds to
fifty that you will not be hanged-nor yet shot, which is,
I believe, the penalty for military treachery."
Sir Neil said dryly:
"No, no, Mr. Smith, I do not bet against certainties.




A Little Less than Gods              17
For it is certain that there is no scrape in the world out of
which Mr. Assheton Smith could not rescue anyone he
chose."
Mr. Smith exclaimed disdainfully:
"Handsomely said, Sir Neil. I imagine I can save whom
I like-particularly if he should have offended that Wellington."
He stiffened slightly and then relaxed into an easy posture. Sir Neil stiffened and remained stiffly erect, momentarily readjusting the immense cocked hat that was
beneath his armpit. Into the rush of the pleasurable confusion that had overwhelmed the young man came the
singular physical sensation of a tweak on his ear.
He span round vigorously upon him who was for the
time King of Elba. He was lowering his hand. His eagle
eyes were half closed. There could be little doubt of his
disorder. His features, always pallid, were of a dead white,
his head drooped-even the stars upon his chest were
tarnished. He acknowledged the salute of the British
representative of his jailers with a minute sideways gesture and, under the eyes of the young man, lethargically
unrolled a little cylinder of paper.
"Yet they say France does not call to me! " he said.
He was holding up a caricature all scarlets, garish blues,
and raw yellows. It showed an immense pallid man in blue
upon a scarlet ass staggering beside a French frontier post.
The ass was labelled "A million foreign troops" and advanced over the corpse of a French soldier.... It was
Louis XVIII upon the ass.
"Well, that is done with," he said in a numb voice.
"Poor France must groan beneath her burden."




I8


A Little Less than Gods


He acknowledged the presentation, of Mr. Assheton
Smith with a slight drawing back of his head and shot at
him one piercing glance. Of what Assheton Smith thought
you could not tell, he kept his features so expressionless.
You could not tell, either-and that was more unusualwhat he desired that you should think of him. His high
features wore their usual mask of stern disdain and weary
resignation.
With a gesture of the right hand as if in invitation
to them to enter his Throne Room the King passed lethargically on, but before they could vent their opinions of the
incident he was back again and more brisk. A slight shade.
of authority even was in his tone as he said:
"Milor is the owner of the felucca-rigged yacht in the
harbour-the Pearl of the Seas?"
"Sire," burst from the lips of the young Feilding: "Mr.
Assheton Smith is more than that. He is for all Europe
the glass of fashion and the model for ton. There is no one
who has not heard of him."
"That is why," Bonaparte said with some ceremony,
"we desire to show solicitude for his yacht." He drooped
for a moment and then, recovering himself, added: "The,
Algerine corsairs that were off Porto Ferrajo last week
have reappeared. We take it that whilst milor enjoys our
hospitality his yacht is safe from their depredations."
The young man interpellated with enthusiasm:
"The Algerines when asked if they had designs against
Elba, answered: 'Would your servants make war upon
God?'"
Mr. Assheton Smith said:
"That answer proves them not the barbarians they are




A Little Less than Gods


19


reputed. Your Majesty, it was a monstrous proper answer."
Napoleon said that the young gamecock exaggeratedit was "the Master of the World" that the Algerines had
said. He added that in earlier days it would not have been
that he did not offer the protection of frigates or line of
battleships to guests leaving his ports.
Mr. Assheton Smith assured his Majesty that he need
have no fear: there was no Salee rover nor no Christian
sloop could approach the Pearl of the Seas.
The King of Elba looked keenly at Sir Neil Campbell:
"You see," he said, "if we desired, as is alleged against
us, a descent upon the mainlaind-a coup de main..."
His tones faltered away.
"Your Majesty means that he could not do better than
seize the Pearl of the Seas for the purpose," Sir Neil supplied.
The king said:
"Yes, yes... that perhaps. But we will do no outrage
upon the British. We have nothing against the British. We
have taken the embargo off the yacht."
He recovered himself suddenly as if he had said:
"Where was I?" and addressed Mr. Assheton Smith with
an almost rustic bonhomie.
"Milor," he said, "I had almost forgotten my purpose,
which is that my sister Pauline begs you to inspect-as
Europe's arbiter elegantiarum-a contre-danse, a rustic
Corsican thing that she will dance in a few minutes with
the Baron de Frejus."
He added to Sir Neil:
"They say the good baron is a renegade Austrian. His




20


A Little Less than Gods


dancing should prove to you at least that he is a good
Corsican... Milor shall judge.... But indeed why
should I show favour to an Austrian-whereas my benevolence to Corsicans is well known. And their fidelity to my
person."
Extending a hand again toward the Throne Room he
passed on. Lethargy overtook him at the third step, the
first two being brisk. He stopped, however, to whisper a
number of words in the ear of a shaggy-haired colonel in a
blue uniform-a well-known favourite of his, a Corsican
indeed, a man with an immense black moustache and a
great swagger beneath his hussar's mantle-Colonel
Count dei Gatti di Vivario.
Sir Neil said anxiously to Mr. Assheton Smith, the subject weighing upon his mind:
"Well... his lethargy! What say you to his lethargy?
I attach great importance to your opinion. You know
men."
"Why," the milor said with the air of a connoisseur,
"I should say the lethargy was real-of a dropsical complexion or variety.... But, for great occasions, as we
have just seen, he can draw himself out of his condition
and act with sense and energy... You might well still
fear him if he were your enemy and a great occasion:
arose!"
Bonaparte beckoning to the British Resident to accompany him to the Throne Room, the boy was left to hear
one hero comment upon the other as they followed slowly
at a distance.
"Why," said Mr. Smith, "he has a certain rustical air to
him and his clothes are contemptible... But there is




A Little Less than Gods


21


about him a je ne sais quoi de... de... gentility.... A flash of the eye; an erection of the spine
when he comes out of his lethargies. That can only come
from blood, so I can well believe that, as they say, he is
the bastard of the Count de Marboeuf-a very great
gentleman of the old days."
The young Feilding said with awe:
"How can that be possible, sir?"
"Why, it is very possible," the milor answered reasonably. "Monsieur le Comte was in Corte at the requisite
season along with the parents of Bonaparte. And it was
M. de Marboeuf who had, from the Marshal de Segur,
Bonaparte's nomination to the military Academy at
Brienne and, in spite of his insubordination, secured his
promotion to the military school at Paris." He added:
"Bonaparte was a most insubordinate and gloomy
cadet."
With even greater awe the young man said:
"Sir, you know everything!"
His interlocutor said reasonably:
"I know somewhat concerning most affairs of the day.
You must not think that I pass all my time in devising the
fashions. I choose to be well-informed and I am wellinformed. I take steps to be."
"Sir," said the boy, can you tell me who is this Baron
de-Frejus?"
"De Frejus," Assheton Smith answered, "appears to be
an Austrian of the name of Masoche, though he has used
many names and may be an Alsatian called Scheffauer.
The King of Elba-so says my man Petrucci-chooses to
style him Corsican so as to account for a certain intimacy




22


A Little Less than Gods


that he allows to Frejus, whom he lately created Baron of
that name. The King is usually kind to his fellow islanders. But this kindness is said to mask long negotiations
as to great money transactions.... De Frejus is an
unsavoury scoundrel, as no doubt you know, but he is a
financier that Recamier himself is said to fear.... Nay,
he is said to have caused the bankruptcy upon which
Madame Recamier was deserted by her lover the Prince
of Prussia. The Prussian royal family are all mercenary
knaves though the present Queen was once a beautiful
woman."
He added:
"You find the Baron an exigent husband?"
The boy said:
"I find him an execrable scoundrel to be married to an
angel."
"But jealous? Or complaisant?" the milor insisted curiously.
"Why sir," the boy answered, "at first he had the air
of jealousy. I had introductions at Genoa to his lady, who
was the daughter of my father's old intimate, the Marquis
de Dinart-Perigord. And in Genoa it was difficult indeed
to come near her.... Here all is different: we mix very
freely and the Baron never says 'Nay'!
Mr. Assheton Smith said:
"Ah!"
"I put it down," the boy said, "to the difference in the
quality in Genoa and in the King's court here.... But
is it not infamous that the Marquis, her father, a most
noble gentleman, should have permitted this greasy,
rascally creature to attain to the hand of one who is a




A  Little Less than Gods            23
miracle of grace, lightness and pink-and-white sensibility?... Why, sir, she might have been an English girl
instead of a mademoiselle!"
Mr. Assheton Smith replied:
"Very likely! Very likely!" He tapped the lid of his
snuff-box and began tentatively:
"Has it not perhaps occurred to you that the lady might
in fact be your...."
But at that moment he took snuff.
The boy was hot to know what could be said about the
most beautiful of her sex and how she could be connected
with his unworthy self.
But Assheton Smith turned the matter off as a mere
passing thought-say, that the boy's father, Squire Feilding, might have aided the Dinard-Perigords, in the matter
of her dowry so as to put her more on an equality with the
fellow. A benevolent man, Squire Feilding! Not discerning enough to see that his protegee was of too fine a mould
for that scoundrel... but kindly!
He broke off to add:
"I would have you not regard too earnestly such remarks of mine as may be mere surmises. When I am in the
society of my equals in birth I permit myself to muse as I
would not before the common herd."
Covered with blushes the boy stammered out his thanks
to the milor. Mr. Smith continued:
"As for my surmises about the parentage of Bonaparte
I think they may be correct. The love-child of a nobleman of before the Revolution would have more opportunities of early promotion than the mere child of a
Corsican secretary to a governor's council. Bonaparte may




24


A Little Less than Gods


have fended for himself later, but his early promotions
were rapid and surprising. A love-child is not infrequently
more forward than a younger son, for a father will frequently do all he can to provide for the one whilst the
other must fend for himself.... I do not say that he will
deprive his heir of his rights, for that would be unnatural
-but he will do his best. And very properly."
They were progressing but slowly down the room, for
the King, with the British Resident beside him, halted
frequently to address one group of officers and ladies or
another. The boy was all impatience for, in the next room,
were lights and Madame de Frejus; nevertheless he was
in ecstasy where he stood for he walked beside a DemiGod and was treated as an equal. Nay-as a confidant.
For Mr. Smith said suddenly:
"You could render me a service-that is to say you
could gratify a curiosity that I have; thus: If a Frenchman-say a soldier-should ask you, using these words:
'Aimez-vous la viotette?' as who should say: 'Do you like
violets?' will you be good enough to answer: not 'Tres
bien' or 'le ne les aime pas'-but simply 'Eh-bien'-'Oh
well!' with a pause between the words.... Will you then
report to me what next your interlocutor says? For even
Petrucci, my man, has not been able to tell me that."
The boy said:
"Sir, I will do that carefully. It seems a very little thing
to ask."
"Why," Mr. Smith said, "it is enough. For, if the next
speech is as I think it may be, it will illuminate my reflections on whether or not Bonaparte intends a descent




A  Little Less than Gods             25
on the mainland. And I may add that it may exerc se a
singular influence on your own career."
"You suspect, sir," answered the boy, "that those
speeches are as it were passwords between confederates?"
"Something of the sort," Mr. Smith said, "so that you
may find yourself involved in a confederation. If you
would rather not, do not do it."
He started:
"What is that terrible discord?" he exclaimed. They
had paused to exchange the last speeches, so that the
Emperor had entered the Throne Room and terribly loud
music had at once brayed out.
The boy raised his voice to explain that they were the
faithful blacks that the Princess Pauline had brought with
her after ceasing to reign over Haiti-their strains mingling with those of the cornemuse or bagpipe native to
the island of Corsica.
"Why no!" Mr. Smith said to his young companion.
They had come so late into the room that the path that
had opened through the press for Napoleon and Sir Neil
had closed again and, not being able to reach the dais, they
were content to look on from the wall.... "You do not
need to be ashamed of your King's court. It is a very
creditable affair for a fair-sized landowner as you must
consider the King of Elba now to be. I could give a vastly
finer rout-ball myself but I am far the richer man. It is
about the show that King George used to provide when
he was in villeggiatura at Weymouth. No more is needed
for these worthy islanders."




26        A  Little Less than Gods
The Throne Room was massed with the citizens and
notables of the city of Porto Ferrajo, with veterans of a
hundred victories, their wives, the daughters, sisters...
The room was lit not only with sconces but chandeliers
of dropped crystals. The music was singularly loud, the
heat considerable.
"It is such a crush as is proper," Mr. Smith said. "It
is the last dance of the island season-as it might be a
tenants' ball..... Tell me which of the ladies upon the
steps of the throne is your inamorata?"
Upon the platform of the dais were arranged three armchairs of red velvet with gilt woodwork. In the middle sat
Napoleon, on his right Madame Letitia. The chair to his
left was empty, for the Princess Pauline was dancing.
Ladies in high-breasted dresses, all their hair be-wreathed,
and officers in several uniforms poured out before the
throne down the steps of the dais or filled the platform
around and behind it. Young Feilding's heart fell to zero;
he missed the fair face, the graceful form, the cherry lips
and sparkling eyes that his glance sought. He knew now
that henceforth his eyes would not be contented with any
scene that did not contain her. He said to himself:
"Without doubt this is the Grand Passion!"
His eyes roved over the visible females. It was impossible that his H6lene should be among the herd —yet his
eyes went over the absurd female islanders who wore
still-as if it were the height of the mode! -the fashions
of the Directorate: the short skirts and short lanky hair,
the bare arms and shoulders. His Helene, he knew, was
wearing, like her mistress Pauline, a big-bodied white




A Little Less than Gods


27


dress with a panel of flowers and sprigs on the skirt, a
wreath of pink roses on her fine, fair hair, a fillet of
pearls crossing the peak of her white brow, a veil of white
gauze that floated with every graceful step of her adorable feet, and round her neck, depending over her
lovely bosoms to the girdle at her waist, a string of great
pearls.
He had sat so long, like Hercules amongst the virgins
of Queen Omphale, that he had these toilet details by
heart. They gave him a certain, as if sensuous, boyish delight. He had heard the Princess Pauline discuss with his
Helene for half the afternoon what dress and what ornaments she should wear that evening. He was aware, for
instance, that, if you have sprigs of myrtle upon a transparent skirt above a silk underskirt, the upper sprigs
should diminish in size so as to diminish the appearance
of the figure -at the waist. But, though he saw her to the
minutest detail with his mind's eye, she was not there.
Only her darkly beautiful foil, the Princess, footed it in
the open square of floor.  He had so lately trembled
at a glance or a touch of the Princess Pauline that it disgusted him to see her run swiftly, skip gracefully, retire
peacocking upon herself; all this around-of all the human and grotesque monsters of the worldI -the Baron de
Frejus!!
That oaf was attired in some outlandish uniform of
someone's royal guard-reddish-purple velvet, gaudily
aping a hussar's tunic, with innumerable silver braidings, insets and frogs of bullion, an absurd, furred cloak
of velvet over his shoulder. He sprang, heavily but with




28        A  Little Less than Gods
barbarous alacrity, high-coloured with the heat, his dishevelled dark-chestnut locks tossing about, erecting his
hands alternately above his head, stamping his high cossack boots and calling: "Ha!"
It was an harassing spectacle: nay, it was disgusting;
for at one moment the Baron had his right arm around
the Princess and swung her around and around, her
delicious sandalled feet floating above the floor. She swung
like that-a very Melpomene in the embrace of an abducting satyr-perfectly impassive, her oval face colourless
and immobile as ivory, her dark eyes between their oval
lids, gazing sideways at the floor, her face bound for the
occasion with a very tight veil of black lace that went
down under her chin and half concealed her frontal of gold
set with enormous cabochon emeralds and rubies... No
doubt she hated the occasion, or so young Feilding hoped.
And he had a mad impulse to snatch his Helene from
nothingness and nowhere and, whirling her into the centre
of that floor, to go with her through all the motions of that
dance-but with, ah, what enhanced grace and to what
plaudits!
The aspiration was however impracticable, for, even
had he known the steps of the dance, Madame de Frejus
remained invisible. Was it possible that, disgusted with the
spectacle of her husband, she had retired to some chamber
apart and there awaited himself?
Mr. Smith was in the meanwhile pleased to commend
the spectacle-even the negro musicians, the last relic of
Julien's famous band that had diverted the court and
fashion of Paris and Grenoble for some years now-and
even he was pleased to condemn the player of the corne



A  Little Less than Gods            29
muse or bagpipe who by means of a string and his foot
operated some violent cymbals. They rolled their eyesthose negroes from Haiti-they clashed, jangled, blew
into brass horns, sawed away at their double basses, wagging their heads from a gallery above the end of the
room.
"Why," Mr. Smith said, "that music is very proper for
a contre-danse, a country-dance or revel, where the province of music is to time the snapping foot. And this, as I
have been pointing out, is by way of being a rustic revel
attended by the lord of the manor. It would not do for a
minuet and of course the fashion is on the wane. But I
would have you observe that for the minuet Bonaparte has
provided strings and wood-wind."
And indeed, in a smaller balcony set in the wall before
them from which the King was accustomed to listen to the
debates of his council, sat rather disconsolate white
violinists, hautbois and bassoon players.
Hardly, with crashing repercussions, had the music
ended when a man, creating a certain disorder in the
crowd, came pushing out to them.
He was the Count dei Gatti di Vivario. In his blue
hussar's uniform, his dolman dragged half down from his
shoulder by the crowd, he was recognizable as the officer
in whose ear Napoleon had whispered-a Corsican, loudvoiced swaggerer with immense moustaches that he would
twist round his forefinger whilst speaking.
They stood back against the wall, a foot or so back
of the crowd for they were tall enough to see over the
heads aligned before them. In this space the Colonel
shook himself as if he had been a rooster re-arranging his




30


A Little Less than Gods


feathers. He placed in the crown of his cocked hat, as
if it had been a salver, a triangularly folded note and held
both towards the younger man.
Young Feilding's heart leapt in his side. The Colonel
said truculently:
"From Madame la Baronne de Frejus!"...She commanded his presence. She had withdrawn
from the dais and awaited him in the little ante-room in
its rear.... There was no doubt of it.
"Dear Brother," the note ran, "before you commit yourself to any step I beseech you to speak with me. I have
withdrawn by order of his Majesty from the dais and
await you in the little ante-room...."
"By order of his Majesty" dampened the matter a
little. But his "sister, Helene de F." awaited him.
He was running swiftly when the Colonel-Count stood
before him twirling his great moustache.
"Monsieur le Lieutenant Feel-dang," he said, one hand
now on his haunch in the hussar manner, "before you go
you will permit me to put to you one question: Aimezvous la violette?-Do you like the violet?"
Before his truculence and in the spring-torrents of his
passion the boy was so surprised as to be about to say:
"No; damn violets." But he recovered himself sufficiently to remember the singular request of his great
patron and to stutter at first: "Eh!" and then: "Bien!"
The Colonel started slightly back. Then he uttered, between his teeth, but distinctly:
"II reparaitra!... It shall reappear."
And our young man could find nothing better to say
than:




A  Little Less than Gods            31
"I saw one upon this island today." For indeed, in a
place sheltered from the east wind, he had that morning
picked a white violet that he imagined at that moment to
be within the corsage of his Helene. There was nothing
else to say.
But it appeared to be the wrong thing, for the hussar
sprang back, touched the hilt of his sword and said:
"Monsieur le Lieutenant, you are a coward and an incompetent!"
Into the bewilderment of the young man-for he could
find only the smallest cause for this insult-there came
the calm words of Mr. Smith suggesting that they step
into the next room. He answered:
"Sir, I must go to Madame Frejus."
Mr. Smith said:
"I do not believe that you can have omitted to observe
that you have an explanation on your hands."
Then they were in the more dim room they had lately
left and the Colonel was saying to Mr. Smith:
"It will no doubt be unnecessary for me to spit in your
compatriot's face."
"It will be completely unnecessary," Mr. Smith replied.




CHAPTER TWO


HE could not come to his Helene. Do what he would
he could not come to his Helene till she was gone
from the ante-room and then he could not find her. Assheton Smith would not let him go in time. He said that
affairs of honour must come before meetings with women:
frequently the one precluded the necessity for the other.
"Indeed," said Mr. Smith dryly, "it is probably against
this affair that your inamorata desired to warn you. As
you are now in it there is no need for your warning. And
I do not choose to let my principal go on the field shaken
with painful interviews with the fair sex."
At another time the young man would have been in a
fever of joy at the thought that this immortal duellist
should choose to act as his second. Now he considered only
that if his Helene knew that he was involved in this
singular affair she would-supposing her to share his
feelings, of which he had no means of knowing-be suffering the direst tortures of apprehension. So that, when
Assheton Smith asked him if he were a good swordsman,
he answered almost indifferently that with the cavalry
sabre he was pretty good, but with the duelling rapier
only so-so. He did not care.
"We had better perhaps, then, choose the pistol," Mr.
Smith said. "For as the insulted party we have the right to
32




A  Little Less than Gods             33
choose our weapons. At least, I take it that we are the
insulted party. That fellow was probably the maUre
d'armes of his regiment."
It seemed queer to the young man that his second
should doubt that he was the insulted party, but of that
Mr. Smith would not be certain.
"You do not know how susceptible these Frenchmen
may or may not be about the violet," he said.
When the young man thought about the duel he felt
numbed and stupid; it was only about Madame de Frejus
that he could excite himself. He said that for himself the
affair seemed to present no mystery. That fellow-Mr.
Smith was right in thinking that he had been a regimental fencing master-had been devastated with jealousy
at being asked to hand him a billet from his Helene.
Naturally he was devoured by passion for that lady.
Mr. Smith said he might have it how he would, but since
he, Assheton Smith, was responsible for the combat-he
having made the young man give the inopportune answer
-he was determined to bring him off as well as he might.
So that, if it were conceded that they were the insulted
party, he should elect for pistols.
The young man said it was all one to him. He had had
some pracqice with the pistol in the Peninsular warfare,
having fired a charge or two at French officers in scuffling
encounters in ravines of the Pyrenees. On horseback. But
he could not see how Mr. Smith could be held responsible
for that fellow's unblessed passion for Madame de Frejus.
"As to that we shall see," Mr. Smith said. "The important point is that you should listen to my counsels,
though I doubt if you are in any condition to do so."




34


A Little Less than Gods


The young man said that, confound it, she was adorable beyond belief. If Mr. Smith could see her eyes!
"It is to the matter of the eyes that I am trying to direct
your attention," Mr. Smith said dryly. "When you stand
before your opponent you will be astonished, at the resolute hatred that will appear in his eyes. But you have to
consider that in nine cases out of ten it is not superhuman
resolution that your antagonist feels but merely intentness
on his aim, and you yourself, aiming intently, will present
as resolute and hateful an appearance. Have you not
noticed that, when practising with foils with the buttons
on, your opponent, throughhis mask, glares at you as if
he would spring at your throat?"
He finished:
"Keep yourself cool then and remember that your visa-vis has no supernatural qualities."
The young man grumbled that he would be ten times
more cool if he could have word with Madame de Frejus
and ascertain that she was interested in his fate. If she
was not he cared not how he died, by sword or otherwise,
or how soon.
"We will, then, elect for pistols," Mr. Smith said.
"These mastre d'armes, though they be the very devil with
the blade, pinking you where, to whatever depth, or in
whatsoever posture you may choose, are frequently not
adepts with the pistol at all, since they practise it much
less. But here comes your adversary with his second. The
plot thickens."
"'They have certainly a mind to my death," the boy
grumbled. "See whom the, fellow has chosen for friend.




A  Little Less than Gods            35
Yet, if you will but let me say farewell to the wife of that
oaf I will fight like a mad lion in a net!"
The Colonel-Count, who had rushed martially away to
find a friend, was once again silhouetted in the doorway;
they watched him from the depths of the room. He had
beside him the flamboyant figure of de Frejus, and as they
advanced they gesticulated and laughed, making as it were
passes with rapiers.
They achieved however a sort of ferocious gravity when
they stood before Mr. Assheton Smith. The sight of the
lady's unworthy husband had, too, aroused such a passion
of dislike in the young man that he listened to the debate
on the preliminaries with some attention-and wonder.
They were by that time in the garden, having gone out
by a little door into a night, black but glorious with stars
that shone through boughs of lemon and olive trees. The
night was warm, still, and lightly perfumed. Before the
dawn, with the wind off the sea, it would grow chilly, and
the herald of day was already paling the lower stars.
Mr. Smith said curtly that he desired to take advantage
of the tail of the dawn wind to get away from the harbour.
He presumed that, as the insulted party, they had the
right to choose weapons. They chose pistols.
The colonel exclaimed: "Ma... no!" but the Baron
silenced him. He said with unctuous gravity to Mr. Smith
that he was astonished that parties who had so gravely
injured another party as was the case with the adversary
of the Colonel-Count could make so bold and wrong a
claim. He was invisible in the shade of the trees but his
voice was strong, gay and buoyant. He claimed, with



36        A  Little Less than Gods
out fear of contradiction, the use of the duelling sword.
Mr. Smith reminded him that his principal had been
called coward and an incompetent.
"But upon what provocation! To insult the violet to my
friend is as a slap in the face. Worse: it is like an expectoration! We choose the duelling sword!"
Mr. Smith remained lost in a reverie for a second or so.
They had been talking all in French; now the Colonel
grumbled in the Baron's ear, in- Italian, that if they used
the pistol it would spoil everything. He could not undertake not to kill his opponent or he might be killed himself.
Italian the young Feilding understood passably, so, having said with hot rage in the same language to them that
he was there to kill or be killed, he translated the Colonel's
phrases to Mr. Smith, who had little or no Italian.
Mr. Smith was singularly slow to reply. At last he said:
"There will be too little light for swords, will there not?
I may say that, if this young gentleman dies or even suffers notably in this rencontre, the survivors will have to
endure my serious displeasure.... In short, I think you
may find a corridor in the palace light enough for the employment of the pistols. For swords, you cannot!"
The Baron exclaimed:
"In the palace! Misericordia! Are you, milor, of a
mind to have us all hanged? Are you not aware that the
Emperor has issued a decree to that effect-that all who
take part in duels shall die at the end of a rope?... I
would have milor understand that all duels here take
place upon shipboard-upon the frigate that lies in the
harbour. This encounter must take place there. Otherwise




A  Little Less than Gods            37
I take my man from the field and report the occurrence to
the Court of Honour!"
It amazed the young man that his patron and mentor
should take this farrago seriously and with reflection. But
so he did, for, after reflection, he said:
"It is of course grossly irregular that this matter should
be debated before the principals. Let us walk aside, Baron.
We can trust you gentlemen to keep your hands from each
other's throats."
He could have trusted the younger man-for no sooner
had the darkness and the olive trees swallowed their forms
than he was in at the door and running across the long
dim room. He was minded to cross the Throne Room and
go in behind the dais.
Alas, there upon the dais, behind the chair of the Princess Pauline, stood young Madame de Frejus, her face
half hidden behind her tortoise-shell fan. Under its shelter
she was talking gravely and deferentially to General
Count Bertrand, her light curls mingling with his greying
locks. Hop as he might on his feet, will as he might, cough
as he might, the young man could not attract her attention. With despair in his heart he ran back through the
dim room, the bright image still dazzling before his eyes.
The night was already pallid with the sudden oncoming
of dawn in those waters, though it would be an hour yet.
The olive trees were ghostly, the lemon foliage grey, the
still grey waters suggested themselves behind the trunks.
The Count was seated on a bench, his arms folded. Mr.
Smith and his companion came gravely down from among
the trees.




38        A  Little Less than Gods
"Gentlemen," he said, "it is arranged to our satisfaction. You will fight upon the maindeck of the King of
Elba's frigate, being hidden from the quay by the mainsail. You will fight with cavalry sabres, with the employment of which you are both familiar."
They went down through the garden swiftly, and then
with more gravity over the cobbles of the Place in front
of the palace. Groups were already hurrying home from
the dance, but their little company of four attracted no
attention, there were so many soldiers busily in the streets.
They wheeled handcarts filled with bundles or staggered
beneath sacks through the narrow street. There was no
doubt that from time to time one would call to the other:
"Ohk! II reparaitra!" "He will appear again!" To
which the other would reply:
"Yes, Corporal Violet!"
"I presume," the young man said to the milor beside
him in a narrow descending street after one of those remarks had passed, "if I had replied: 'Yes, the Corporal
Violet will reappear,' I should not be now in this
affair."
"Why no," his interlocutor answered dryly. "If you had
said that you would have been in it even deeper!"
"It is plainly," the boy said, "a code of the Bonapartists
and heralds the re-conquest of France."
Mr. Smith placed a finger on his lips and whispered:
"H'sh!" He added that some of the soldiers might understand English; if they did, that was no safe thing to say.
They came down to the edge of the enclosed harbour.
Bonaparte's sole frigate rose above the quay, for that
tideless and glassy water was almost level with the coping




A Little Less than Gods


39


stones. Men with baggage mounted a steep gangway and
returned empty-handed. They said to one another they
must soon give over for the dawn was almost there. They
laughed and shouted: "Hurry! Hurry!"
It was a long affair, the preliminaries of this duel-for
the decks of the Inconstant were littered with the baggage
the soldiers had left. And, in the stillness of the coming
dawn, the young man felt little emotion, it was so unreal.
Assheton Smith told him that, should he fall, he himself
would convey the news to his father, Squire Feilding, in
Shropshire-and that gave the young man satisfaction.
But who would tell his Helene? Her husband, no doubt!
He wished the duel could have been with Frejus. Him,
he-George Feilding-could no doubt kill.... But
then, if he killed the husband, could he marry the widow?
It had been done but was not favourably regarded....
Apart from the clamour made by Gatti di Vivario and
Frejus in getting the deck of the ship cleared by a soldier
or two and some ragged seamen, it grew stiller and stiller.
Fishing boats with sterns as pointed as their bows barely
muzzled at the quay; when a yard swung it was as if with
a sigh in its sleep. There became gradually visible two,
then three, larger vessels, one felucca-rigged, one schooner
and a vessel hardly more than a brigantine. The Inconstant herself-though Corsican grandiloquence must call
her a frigate —the Inconstant herself was no more than a
small brig, too. Was it thinkable that Napoleon could contemplate the re-conquest of the world with a tartane, a
schooner and two small brigs? It was unthinkable. Assheton Smith's beautiful white yacht that now showed plain,
moored to a buoy in the middle of the still harbour, could




40


A Little Less than Gods


have taken all that squadron aboard, like boats on her
decks.
A man-Captain la Sinse of the Inconstant, Feilding
knew him well-was now making a terrific caterwauling
on the deck. He came to the side and with extravagant
gestures addressed George Feilding in his lingua franca.
Feilding understood that he objected to such doings
aboard his frigate. He had been awakened by the trampling over his head. He was in his shirt and trousers, the
shirt open to the waist. He disappeared.
The young man grumbled to Assheton Smith that it
grew cold. With this delay his muscles'would become stiff
whilst his opponent, hauling baggage about the deck, kept
himself warm. Assheton Smith proposed that they walk to
the end of the quay and back. On the deck of the brigantine were two field-guns. They were tarpaulined, like
muffled animals, but there was no mistaking the line of
their barrels, their upturned muzzles and their wheels.
At the sight of them Assheton Smith took snuff ironically,
but the young man asked hotly how they were to know
that the guns were not coming rather than returning?
Assheton Smith said that if the King of Elba in truth
meditated the conquest of Europe he, Assheton Smith,
would give no little to make the journey with the Kingin order to know how he acted and fared. Unfortunately
he had engagements in the Mediterranean that would preclude his so doing. The boy said that he too would fain
be of such an expedition; but he feared, from long conversations with the King, that there would be none and he
asked his companion to observe the stillness of the town.
There was no doubt about the stillness of Porto Fer



i Little Less than Gods


4I:rajo. The high facades of the housefronts that now began
to appear as the dawn-mists lifted, white-painted mostly
but with here and there a lowest story painted blue or
scarlet or orange-the high facades were completely destitute of humanity. Here and there a cat sat in a porch; a
lean dog gnawed at garbage in a runnel. Assheton Smith
said:
"Ah, but you shall see the activity into which it shall
spring once Sir Neil is aboard my yacht and out there in
the offing." They were beginning to stir aboard the yacht.
A man in white ducks with a scarlet stocking-cap emptied
a bucket of ashes over the side. In an hour she was to sail
away carrying the Demi-God and the British Resident
towards Genoa.... In an hour he himself might be
stretched on the deck of the Inconstant. But he did not
believe it. His Helene would be too inconsolable. Besides
he believed in British coolness. These Corsicans were too
excitable.
They had, indeed, an exhibition of Corsican excitability
to fortify him the more, immediately afterwards. For,
when they came to the plank that led down from the
opening in the bulwarks to the dock, they were all but
knocked down by the captain of the Inconstant who, in a
voluminous boat-cloak-for he could not have had time
to dress himself —and an immense cocked hat of black
felt with a cockade in the yellow-and-blue colours of the
Island, descended the plank at a gallop, vociferating that
he did not intend to be hanged as an accessory to this duel,
and ran away, stumbling, like a great bat, over the cobbles
of the quay. Those on the boat had by now so barricaded
the near bulwarks of the ship with soldiers' sacks that you




42


A Little Less than Gods


could no longer see the deck from the quayside; but, from
the deck, the barricade was only neck-high for a tall man
and the Baron de Frejus, coming to the side, shouted to
the retreating captain: Where should they fight if not on
the deck of a ship since it was forbidden under pain of the
gallows to fight on terra firma? So at least the young
Feilding interpreted his Corsico-Italian.
"Well, we had better fight or we shall be interrupted,"
Assheton Smith said, "That fellow will surely arouse the
whole town and the provost marshal with them."
"I do not want to be interrupted," the boy exclaimed.
"You cannot easily kill with the sabre except by a direct
blow over the head and I think I can at least guard mine.
And Madame de Frejus may nurse me if I be fleshwounded enough to keep my bed!"
"Then let us go aboard," Mr. Smith replied. "I hope
they will lend me a boat-cloak for it grows woundily
cold."
They duly provided him with that and a second's sabre.
He wore a high, fawn-coloured beaver, all the others having large black tricornes. There was a military surgeon
with a case of instruments beneath his arm-a paunchy,
red-nosed fellow. He carried a lanthorn and there were
two other lanthorns for the seconds-the Baron and Mr.
Smith. There was hardly need for lanthorns: it was growing very light. Still their pink horn sides were agreeable in
the chilly dawn.
The Baron grumbled that there was not much room.
The seconds might be pinked by the sabres if the duellists moved freely. He announced himself no hero, but
a financier-a high-cheekboned man, with dark-chest



A  Little Less than Gods            43
nut, curling hair and a bulldog jowl-of fifty-three or so.
The dawn made him look older; still, he was upright
in his carriage and heavy.
The Colonel-Count was stripping himself of his dolman; George Feilding was also undoing his manybuttoned tunic: the cold smote him on the chest-bone.
Gatti di Vivario sneered that as he had no intention of
moving his feet the Baron would be in no danger from
his sabre, and that annoyed George Feilding. But they
were indeed in a very small cock-pit, cleared between the
main and the mizzenmast and walled in by the bales of
sacking that the soldiers had very neatly dressed. The
young man had never seen a duel though he had frequently speculated on how they were conducted. Certainly he had expected more parade, the seconds walking at a distance, talking gravely, removing their hats
from time to time to each other. But this was a queer
affair. He could not get away from a sense of unreality.
The slight metallic, wheezing sound that the sabres made,
when, having measured them the one on the other, the
Baron and Mr. Assheton Smith drew them again apart,
was the most real thing about it-and the feel of the
heavy hilt in his hand. But that was familiar enough. You
had in the cavalry to have some acquaintance with the
sabre if only that you might not cut off your horse's ear.
He had done that once and afterwards had been so
ashamed that he had at least taken trouble with his
sword drill.
The Colonel-Count had a singularly dirty shirt to have
emerged from his gorgeous jacket but he saluted with a
much greater sweep of the sabre. Then Mr. Smith or the




44


A Little Less than Gods


other-for he was too intently watching Gatti di Vivario
to know who spoke-a voice then said peremptorily:
"Laissez aller!" and he to himself: "By Jove, I'm in
for it!"
The feel of the other's blade on his affected him as if it
had been the watching of a cat-a questioning, peering
contact. He affected a little pressure with his own blade.
The fellow had a wrist of steel. Pressing his blade was like
pressing the side of the ship. From a glint in the eyes
opposite he knew another sort of question was coming.
His own wrist automatically swung round and down; steel
clanged. His opponent had flicked at about his own kneecap, perhaps no more than a feint....
Two dirty Frenchmen and a PortugeeOne jolly Briton can lick them all three!
George Feilding tried a cut at the other's shoulder; his
wrist came round well-but the other's metal duly stopped
his blade. It would, of course. He would have no chance
with a fencing master. Still
A raw recruit might chance to shoot
Great General Bonaparte....
They were back where they started. The fellow's eyes
were like black tarns fringed with black rushes. They
were immense and intent, but there was a curve round the
corners of his lips. You must not look at his lips, you
must look at the eyes! What the devil's right had the fellow to snigger when he was fighting with an Englishman?
It was true that he did not move his feet-keeping them
like the matador in the bull-ring George had seen in San
Juan de Luz where Wellington had had his hounds...




A Little Less than Gods


45


Perhaps he, George Feilding, would never ride to hounds
again'.... But the fellow should be made to move. He
should be made... to... move! George was slogging
away between each intake of the breath. The fellow's
blade was always there: then it whickered above George's
head, shimmering in the lanthorn-light. Well, he too was
there I
He wanted to ride to hounds again. He wanted to give
his Helene a lead in the Six Mile Bottom country. She had
ridden to hounds in England in her young years. On his
father's mounts, of course.... Blows the delivery of
which took the breath clean out of his lungs the fellow
patted back as if you were throwing peas at him.... He
presumably, too, loved George's Helene. But could such a
blackamoor love? There was however no other conceivable reason for their being there....
He began to pride himself on doing well. If he had not
touched the fellow at any rate the fellow had not touched
him. Ha!... The fellow's moustache had jumped..
An immense weight on the wrist! An insupportable
weight! A clang; a reiterated clanging and thumping. His
sabre lay beside the other fellow's foot, the brass adornments of the hilt gleaming dully in the dawn. Assheton
Smith was coolly between them, his second's sabre extended. The Baron de Frejus and the doctor were slipping
down from the bales on which they had taken refuge....
Jove, how his fingers on the inner side were grazed with
the hilt's tearing itself from his grasp! Assheton Smith
was offering him a handkerchief. His brows streamed and
his eyes began to smart with the sweat in them.... The
other fellow at least had too to wipe his forehead with a




46        A  Little Less than Gods
handkerchief of the Baron's. He leant on his blade. He
was grumbling to the Baron.. Grumbling! Badtemperedly! Then he was annoyed... at his, George's,
prowess!
Assheton Smith said nothing to George, but when he
had examined both the combatants' weapons again he said
with all the calm in the world to the Baron: "They had
better start again before they grow cold!"
George now was raging. He had caught a grin and a
wave of the hand from his opponent to the Baron and the
doctor. He was despised by this braggadocious, ragged
beggar. No doubt with similar terms and gestures he
would subsequently describe the encounter to Helene.... He, George, was fighting for her.... You can but
risk all
He risked all. Even a cavalry subaltern, though no
duellist, knows that you should not expose to a former
maitre d'armes of a French regiment-of-the-Iine's sabre
your whole knee, hip, thigh, side, chest and head itself
whilst you hack with a really too heavy and ill-balanced
sabre, even with all the passion of your body to back it.
But he did it. And at that very moment the dark eyes
looked aside. There was shouting from the quayside. Imperious shouting!
Of course a maitre d'armes can afford to look aside
whilst a novice hacks at his head, but apparently he cannot afford to be distracted by shouting. His wrist slackened in the slightest and as the young man rose to his
fullest height, chopping ponderously down, the Corsican's
blade did not altogether withstand the impact and with
the grunt of his effort the young man rejoiced sharply




A Little Less than Gods


47


and in wonder at the arrest of his sword-blade not only by
metal but by a softer body. He had borne down his opponent's guard and the flat of his own blade had struck, like
a blunt ax on the Colonel-Count's bare shoulder. He
dropped his point uncertainly; he was elated rather than
proud and he was uncertain what to do. The Corsican, his
face full of amazement or incredulity, or maybe of pain,
was staggering, though he still held his sabre before him.
He had undoubtedly moved his feet. The doctor was
slipping down from the bales.
The young man was as puzzled as elated. From the fact
that neither his patron nor the Baron came forward to
strike up their swords he could not imagine that either the
duel or the bout was ended; therefore he must keep his
eyes upon his opponent's blade, but at the same time he
could not bring himself to use his sabre on an opponent in
that condition. But caution could not hold and he glanced
over his shoulder for advice.
There came round the piled bales on the inner side of
the ship the tall, lean, dry form of Count Bertrand whom
he very well knew-in an undress blue uniform and with
a dry expression on his thin, enthusiast's face. He bent
upon the boy, to whom he was usually cordial and indulgent, an expression of the deepest reproach, exclaiming:
"Laissez tomber vos epees.... Let fall your swords.
You are my prisoners."
There came behind the Count two subalterns, one his
galloper, and the captain of the Inconstant whose dark
and hairy face expressed joy and malignity. He exclaimed
unceasingly: "Aha! See you! Aha! See you! "
Well, the Count Gatti di Vivario was to go to his quar



48


A Little Less than Gods


ters under arrest, and he went, bending not very hostile
glances on the young man. He said:
"You may thank God and St. Remigerius that you are
alive! You are the first man that has touched me in twenty
years. Since I was a recruit. And you know very well to
what distraction it was owed. If Count Bertrand had not
a voice like twelve peahens calling from the quay you
never had done it! "
He was swinging his dolman around him jauntily
enough but he could not get into his tunic which one of
the subalterns held for him.
George Feilding called to him as he went away:
"Well, you will tell Madame de Frejus how I pinked
you!" And then he wished he had not been so highspirited, for after all the Count was his rival and one
should be galant-homme. The Count paused, looking back
over the bales through which a passage led to the gangplank.
"I will tell her," he said, "that you delivered to me a
kick with the strength and the address of a prize ox! " But
he came quickly back with a hand extended from under
his dolman and said:
"There, let the scarlet of mortification die from your
cheeks. I will tell her that you behaved with great gallantry before the finest swordsman in the French Empire
and that in danger she might well rely on your good arm.
For how were you to know that before her tears I swore
that not a stitch of your clothing should be disturbed by
my blade!"
Then he went, followed by the subaltern.
There was much too much for that young man to think




A Little Less than Gods


49


of and no one was more aware of it than that young man
himself. In spite of the grave face of Count Bertrand he
could not imagine that this was a very grave affair. He did
not suppose, for instance, that they would hang him. Still
he was aware that military discipline was a strict thing
and there he was undoubtedly under arrest. The Count
Bertrand stood regarding him whilst he buttoned up the
innumerable buttons of his tunic; the Count's galloper,
a boy called Gonart-Jobart-some such name, held his,
George Feilding's, dress sword which he had removed
from his pipe-clayed belt.
He desired to consult with Assheton Smith-but both
Assheton Smith and the Baron had vanished. That was
natural: seconds are as implicated as principals where
prohibited affairs of honour are concerned. He could figure
his patron and the Baron tiptoeing away round one bastion of bales whilst Count Bertrand and his forces entered
round the other. Assheton Smith would not want to be
detained upon the Island over a tiresome affair-though
he could hardly imagine even its one Demi-God, the King
of Elba, laying hands upon the glorious other. But where
was Assheton Smith gone to? Into the fore-part of the
brig? Below? Over the side? Ah...
Hooking up his stock collar he proceeded gingerly to
the side, no one hindering him. There, barely moving on
the water, fended off by the knuckles of its white-dressed,
scarlet stocking-nightcapped rowers, was his patron's
white galley, from whose stern where they reclined on
gold-corded, black satin cushions, looked up the milor
and the Baron de Frejus. He congratulated them on having got so nicely off.




50


A Little Less than CGods


"You would not expect to find me in an earth with both
holes stopped!" Mr. Assheton Smith said coolly. "It
would appear that my insatiable curiosity has got you
into a scrape indeed." The boy said that, No, he was very
content and interested. "Why," said Mr. Smith, "Tua res
agitur: volenti non fit injuria!...but if you repent it,
jump for this boat. I warrant they will not take you."
Whistles sounded from aboard his yacht, seeming to
awaken the day; the great curved yards swung round letting drop scarlet-tinted canvas gay across the sky; another long, white boat, similar to the one that swayed
gently beneath the young man's face, tore the mirror of
the harbour with fast strokes of its many sweeps, the
great blue, scarlet and white criss-crossed jack trailing at
its stern and the huge black cocked hat over the sternsheets denoting that his Britannic Majesty's Representative was going aboard.
"Why, no," the young man exclaimed. "Damn it, no. I
am in an adventure and I will stay in my adventure!" He
would not for the world have left that island where, in the
commonest justice, his Helene must be admiring his prowess with the sabre.
The Baron de Frejus, who had kept his eyes under his
hat, gave a morose, sardonic look upwards at the young
man's face. He spoke English well when he would for he
had been in England many years; but he said in heavy
French:
"I commend Madame de Frejus to your respectful devotion. Remember that she is an orphan and your father's. ward... protegee... one might well say...
Mr. Assheton Smith cut in:




A Little Less than Gods


5'


"Non, non, M. le Baron.... Is pater est quem nuptice
demonstrant.... You will leave it at that if you wish
to please me!"
The Baron looked sulkily at the milor beside him and
then sank his head so that his face no longer appeared to
the young man.
"Why," the boy said to him, "you expected that I
should present a ridiculous spectacle at the point of your
bombastes furioso, though in truth he appears a good fellow. But you see I do not.... The Princess Pauline will
lament the going of her dance-squire if indeed you be going...." The Baron did not look up but below his hat
brim his jaws worked.
"This fellow," Mr. Assheton Smith said in English, "is
the man of affairs of... the Princess Pauline...." He
stressed the name. "He has obtained for the affairs of the
Princess... Pauline... of the bankers of Genoa
twelve million French livres.... And he goes again to
see if-as I will put it-under my aegis-he may not obtain another twelve million.... So, as I think he well
may, he is to some extent beholden to me. None the less I
would not prick him too hard an I were you!..." He
continued: "But you may perceive from the mention of
these not inconsiderable sums that the... Princess
Pauline has considerable-or let us say earth-shakingaffairs agate...."
"The Princess Pauline," the boy said hotly, "is a monstrously wealthy lady as she is one of the loveliest of her
sex. She no doubt calls for money for her brother's improvements in his kingdom."
"Twenty-four million livres for the improvements of




52


iA Little Less than Gods


four square yards of rock!" the milor said. "Tut, tut! my
good fellow!" —and when the boy asked hotly what he
meant he gazed questioningly at the sky.
"Only," he answered, "that you will have a smooth sea
tonight. If you are a good sailor you will escape seasickness." He cut in upon the boy's ejaculations of puzzlement with a business-like abruptness. He said that as soon
as he found himself in Genoa he should go before the British vice-consul though he hated contact with these commercial diplomats. And he should depose to a formal
compte rendu of this affair; how young George Feilding
had fought creditably in an encounter with sabres, his
opponent being a champion of the French Army; how he
had been arrested and placed on parole by the military
authorities of the King of Elba, and other things that he,
Mr. Assheton Smith, Esq., had witnessed. And he should
send one copy of that attestation to George Feilding's
father, and one to the Colonel of the Monmouthshire
Yeomanry, and one to the Commander-in-Chief at Whitehall, and one he should deliver to Sir Neil Campbell to be
compared with the record in the archives of that island.
The young man thanked him warmly but hardly saw
that he should have need of all this or all these copies.
"Why yes, you may," Mr. Assheton Smith said, "or my
reading of the omens is awry. I should not wonder if in
the troubles to come all those copies may not go astray.
Then where should you be?..." He continued: "But
that if the young man felt gratitude to him, well, knowing
his, Mr. Assheton Smith's insatiable curiosity and desire
for information, the young man could seriously oblige him
by storing in his memory lively or important happenings




A  Little Less than Gods             53
that he should observe and subsequently reporting them
to Mr. Assheton Smith.
"For," he finished, "if I mistake not you are this day
going on-aye, and well forward among-the fields of
such a fox-chase as Nimrod never described or I myself
hardly ever gave the 'Hark away... Hark for'ard!'
to.... And the cry of hounds shall go from Muscovy
to the bounds of Carthage. And further!"




CHAPTER THREE


HE had been hoodwinked and made a fool of. That
he realized watching Assheton Smith departing
swiftly to the beautiful movement of oars. The milor,
turning round in the stern-sheets, took off his beaver and,
waving it as if he were encouraging hounds, gave vent to
such a musical "Go.. o.. ne away!" as the waters
of Porto Ferrajo or the whole Mediterranean can never
before or since have heard the like of. So the boy recognized that he had been tricked. The duel had been
probably a sham one; his detention on that boat, for all
he knew, was probably only a gesture too. But how far
did the conspiracy go and who were in it?
He grinned. Anyhow Gatti di Vivario had got a confounded sore arm out of it-and he himself was perfectly content to be where he was. He did not indeed
ask any better. Parole or no parole he was going to see
his Helene by four o'clock that afternoon. If she had been
dancing till six she would want till four to recover herself. But he would wait no longer, for who knew how
long her accursed husband would be away? And the next
thing was breakfast. How did you get breakfast here?
Round the corner of the bale-pile he found Count Bertrand gazing at a coil of ropes; in meditation; the captain
of the ship and his galloper gazing at him. Awaiting his
directions. The young man knew the attitudes of soldier
54




A Little Less than Gods


55


officers who think out problems. They stand erect, their
heads drooping, their subordinates looking up as if to a
godhead. But he wanted his breakfast and he said so.
When he was at ease about Madame de Frejus he was a
very cheerful young man.
The Count said abstractedly:
"You will put the 16th Regiment here, then, and the
Fourth Cavalry on the brig. Yes... that!"
There were six-hundred-odd of soldiers of all arms in
the army of the King of Elba, but they were divided into
twenty regiments. Each had a skeleton headquarter staff
-but each had feuds with several of the other regiments,
so that billeting them about the town of Porto Ferrajo or
elsewhere was no easy matter. The 16th Infantry and the
Fourth Cavalry had a feud that dated from Borodino and
was famous. They had smashed up the Street of St. Anthony between them on the night of the Reveillon de
l'An. Few indeed of the inhabitants of the city would forget that San Sylvestro.
The young man said that he wanted his breakfast. He
said to the captain and to the Count and to the aide-decamp, calling him first Cornart and then Gobart, that he
wanted his breakfast. The consideration of regimental
feuds could wait, but he, he had been up all night and
fought a fine duel. The Count Bertrand spat around at
him, his cloak swinging finely out.
"You!" he said. "You do not need any breakfast. You
are going to be hanged. Jump over the side and drown
yourself!"
"You forget that I await your orders, General," the
young man said with concern at the delay to his meal.




56


A Little Less than Gods


"Except that I am under arrest and may not leave this
fishing smack I do not know how I stand. May I go to
my apartment and get my man to give me breakfast?"
"You may not," the Count answered. "You are going
to be hanged. Or at least if I were the Emperor I would
have you hanged. By your clumsiness you have disabled
the army's Quartermaster-General and I have to do his
work. As if I had not work enough already!"
"Why, Madame Honorine cannot need you to hold her
wool-skeins at this hour of the morning," the young man
said; "but it is a very proper hour for breakfast for a
man who has fought a duel. I was invited to fight a duel
over violets. I am no brawler!"
The Count looked fixedly at the young man-for long
enough to take snuff, though he took none.
"My Lieutenant," he said, "His Majesty is pleased to
take one course with the details of which you are no doubt
acquainted. But there are others-and those plus royalistes que le roi-amongst whom I number myself. And
they think otherwise. For myself I will never indulge in
any day-dreams as to your perfidious Albion, though his
Majesty is pleased to. But for yourself you may think
yourself fortunate that your throat is not cut. You personally are a pleasant sort of a boy and I have found it
not difficult to be easy with you at his Majesty's demand. I do not see how you can have escaped from the
perfidy that distinguishes all your countrymen. But you
may have and I can very well see that it would embarrass
his Majesty if at this juncture your throat should be cut
or your head be stove in. So I warn you that in this affair
there are very formidable men engaged, with their necks




Ad Little Less than Gods            57
in danger. Do not then-at any rate till sunset-engage in
any unseemly levity upon this subject that engages all our
hearts."
A certain bewilderment mingled with the hunger of the
young man. He was aware that occasionally the old moustachios of the army or even the civilians of the island
had directed none too friendly glances in his direction,
and now and then they would grumble as he passed. But
he had laughed them down usually with his good-humour
and some he knew he had won over by letting them talk
of Jena or olive planting. And the will of the Emperor had
imposed a certain cordiality towards himself and such
other English as till lately had visited the Isle. So he said:
"Why, monsieur the Count, that is a plaguily long and
mysterious discourse to address to a woundily hungry
man. I would be glad if you would order me some breakfast. Then, after that, I will do all I can to please you."
dIe added:
"I would not have you think me any Tom-Paine man
or ragged Age-of-Reasoner. But I wish his Majesty,
nevertheless, very sincerely well and I hope my country
will prove of my advice. All the same it is unreasonable, if
you have nets of enigmas all over the ground, not to expect
my feet to stumble in them when I come across them! "
The Count continued to stare at him with his avid eyes,
and his hunger grew. He had indeed an intolerable gnawing at his vitals and the harbour-morning appeared grey
and disagreeable, though level saffron rays already fell
upon the parti-coloured house-fronts. He added therefore
querulously:
"I assure you that I know nothing of your plots. I see




58


A Little Less than Gods


not how I can have insulted any man by declaring that I
have seen a violet upon this island. For even if the violet
be the emblem of the person of His Majesty, no one is to
be offended if I say that I have seen...'
"Young madman," the Count said, "it is no question of
who is or is not insulted. It is that certain men may think
themselves endangered because you have any knowledge
of that emblem at all, so I beg you will hold your tongue
once for all upon the subject.... And I beg that you will
keep yourself upon this vessel, for in the excitement that
will this day prevail in the city of Porto Ferrajo I cannot
answer for you, and His Majesty makes.me answerable
for you."
"Sir," the young man said, and it pleased him to observe what assurance the having fought a creditable duel
gave him in talking with his elders. "I will stay upon this
vessel-I give you my parole-if towards four o'clock
my kinswoman, Madame de Frejus, with or without Madame Pauline, will grace me with a call here. They may
be able to interpret suitably to my comprehension these
matters which I assure you, sir, you make almost Greek
to me!'"
"Faith of a Norman," the Count exclaimed, but not illnaturedly, "this madman will be chief eunuch of the Emperor's hareem, now; bidding the ladies of honour walk
now this way, now there!..." He called the captain of
the vessel and bade him take Lieutenant Feilding below
and give him some of the Emperor's ham.
"Why," the young man said, "I will have ham and
some of that admirable potted meat they call I forget
what. Yes! Pate de Grives! And oysters if they are to be




A  Little Less than Gods            59
had. And hock-wine and seltzer which are admirable after
a ball-night... and...
The Count said:
"Captain la Sinse, you will give this officer what he shall
desire of what the Emperor's store affords. And afterwards
you will tell the butcher to slaughter a fat beast. And you
will see that he does not leave the ship...
The captain grumbled that Perducet who was aboard
the ship could feed the young fellow, and that if he attempted to go ashore, he, Captain la Sinse, would with the
greatest pleasure shoot him through the back the moment
he put his foot upon the gang-plank.
"Why, no," Count Bertrand said, "that is not what is
desired of you. On the contrary, you will treat the Lieutenant as if he were the apple of your eye and particularly
will you see that he is fed as if he were a multitude of
gamecocks. Only, should he in absence of mind pursue a
pretty petticoat on to the wharf, you will approach him
and, with a proper salute, remind him that he has passed
his word to General Count Bertrand that, for his own
good, he will not leave the ship."
The captain said he would rather have it the other way,
but since those were the orders he would observe them,
and so led the young man down to his cabin. The captain
was a singularly be-tallowed person, his lank black locks
communicating a layer of grease to his sea-cloak's collar
and to his shirt when he took the cloak off, so that his
small cabin, with windows in the stern giving on a small
gallery of flowers in pots and furnished with crimson
utrecht velvet and gilt wood, was not quite what you
would expect.




60           A  Little Less than Gods
There was indeed a profusion of gilding and crowns
that would have become a theatre, but such was the young
man's hunger that he minded his surroundings very little.
He was waited upon by an old, tired man, in his breeches
and shirt, called Perducet or Perduca-a man that was
somewhat of a huntsman and somewhat of a scullion about
the court of Elba-and the plates were of very beautiful
china figured with roses and the cipher N beneath a
crown. A framed armorial bearing confronted him, beyond
the table, up under the low ceiling but above the casement.
It showed gilt bees crossing a blue ground; leaning against
a corner of the window was a staff with a colour case, like
a great rocket, but surmounted by an eagle in gilt bronze.
There was no doubt about it: he was in the lion's den
and composedly consuming the lion's food. For Perducet
tiredly informed him that if they gave the Emperor such
saldanza and lanha as the boy there had served to him
the Emperor would eat better and his health benefit. Perducet knew the Emperor's tastes, having observed him on
expeditions in Corsica. Years ago, years and years ago.
When Madame Mere had been a young woman and
plump!
The young man had indeed been served on a great
silver platter with a great many kinds of high-flavoured
sausages, with hams and bacons of all manner of flavourings.... The boy ate; the old man maundered on: A
partridge now and then, that they should serve to his
Majesty. Shot by him, Perduca, in the Valley of the Lion,
chosen by him-not too long hung, but sufficiently. They
gave the Emperor nothing but chicken. Good for ladies
but too tasteless. Let them make his mouth water and




A Little Less than Gods


his health would return. Give him the food of Corsica
and the wine of Cap Corse.... This hock now-the
young man was drinking hock and seltzer water at his own
request. This hock now. Pah, it tasted as if you had vomited and was only good for horses. Let the Emperor give
it to his charger after a hard day, but himself drink the
wine of Cap Corse! Good stuff. With body in it. Promising
restoration to the weary.
The young man now became aware that he was weary.
That is to say that he was sleepy, for but for the overpowering inclination to close his eyes he was in spirits to
fight a score more duels. For he was of an age to get
elation from the thought that here he was at an imperial
table, eating off imperial vessels imperial viands. It is true
that he had often sat at the King's board, but that was
different. There he had taken what was served him; here
he commanded.
"In truth I am like a worm in a walnut shell!" he
laughed at himself. And that was the last thing that he
really remembered except that Perducet-or Perducawas asking him familiarly, with a sort of awe, why his
countrymen were such villains, so continually tracking
his Majesty who was the soul of goodness. It was something fascinating and terrifying-as if they defied Godthose Goddams!
But the young man, urged by an irresistible force, staggered between table and couch, to fall upon the latter.
He had barely time to grumble at the Emperor for having
such coarse velvet to cover his sofa bolsters. It pricked
his cheek. He was being covered with a cloak by the
old fellow.... The Lion's fell.... He lay in the




62        A  Little Less than Gods
Lion's bed, covered with the Lion's skin.... Hercules!
He was awakened by news that Madame de Frejus
awaited him on the quay.
When he confronted her from the ship's side, she being
below him on the quay, she was moody. She was undoubtedly moody. A trumpet too sounded from the mouth of
an alley that led up into the town. It was at first difficult
to make himself heard. She was in pink, thrusting the
ferrule of her parasol into the interstices of the great
stones of the quay. He imagined that she was moody because some detail of his uniform was awry. But he had
no mirror. He was still confused with the haste he had
made-wrenching at his tight collar; his sabretasche getting between his shins; his shako wrong side to the fore!
Dabbing at his rebellious hair with his heavy fingers. This
was tragedy. Or she was moody with him because he had
made her wait. Tragedy! Crime! He had made her wait!
Bugles, trumpets, drums, cymbals-all the infernal military dins of which Hell itself could be capable drowned
his apologies to her, nor, though her serious lips moved,
could he catch a word. She knew he liked her less well in
pink than any other colour. That then indicated displeasure-and eternal despair! You do not greet the victor
of a martial combat waged in your honour with a dress of
non-favourite hue without you mean to dismiss him in
fayour of a rival. He had told her that he liked her less
in pink. Or perhaps he had no.t told her. It was maddening
not to know whether he had or had not. He remembered
that he had not, at one time, cared-dared-that he could
not bear-to tell her that he liked her less in anything.
It might have been taken to mean... She was speak



A  Little Less than Gods            63
ing.... He went out of his mind in the effort to hear
her. He thought he caught the word "ingratitude."
How in the world had he shown ingratitude? How?
How? Had she a passion for the Colonel-Count? Then let
him die-him, George Feilding.
Soldiers with every type of martial noise were debouching from every horrible alley of that hateful town. Marching to surround a staging in the centre of the quay-but
nearer the ships! In addition men were now shouting.
Well-they had to shout orders if they wanted to get
troops into position. But why the devil should they want
to form a square round that hustings? It was not election
time!
With a white-gloved hand she was beckoning him to
come down to her. That was horrible. He really screamed
the word "parole" and waved his hands towards the gangplank, the mast-head, the deck! He could not make her
hear the word so he must have the air of refusing her society.... She could not know that he was on parole or
she would never ask him to leave the ship. She was the
soul of honour: she could appreciate what soldier's honour
was because she was of a soldierly family. That is to say
her father was a marquis and so presumably soldierly. He
was in this horrible dilemma-to wit, either his lady was
dishonourable or she would not have him ignore his parole.
Or else she did not know he was on parole and must regard
him as a coarse oaf that refused her invitation to come to
her side! Was ever man so placed? In all the history of the
world and of unhappy lovers, surely never!
The trained military-even the eye so little trained as
that of George Feilding-which had seen but two and a




64


A Little Less than Gods


half years or so of rather irregular warfare in the defiles
of Spanish mountains and a little more during Wellington's march on Bordeaux-the trained military eye will
take in details of movements all unconsciously, be the
mind itself never so much in agony. Thus, dancing from
foot to foot, like a cat on hot bricks, on top of the bulwarks where he held himself erect by a rope stay and
agonizedly shouted words that he knew to be inaudible
to a young woman in a short pink dress with pink crossgartering from her delicious little shoes upwards-a young
woman who made every motion to walk away-George
Feilding could not but take in the evolutions of small
bodies of troops on the stones of the harbour. He looked,
naturally, straight and beseechingly at the pink dress,
but the corners of his eyes told him that never had he
witnessed-and perhaps never again would he witnesssuch rapid evolutions of cubed humanity. Mostly bearskinned, though there were also the shakos of hussars, the
brass, horsehair-tailed and tufted helmets of cuirassiers
-the columns of men swung into place as if they had been
propelled by catapults; they halted as if checked violently
by the sight of disasters; their small arms came down
as if hurled simultaneously to the cobbles from great
heights. And he had never heard the strains of the Marseillaise in the open, with all brass and all drums. As a
soldier he should have stood gazing, drinking in the martial sight. For there could be no doubt about it: Napoleon
himself was reviewing his veteran troops of all arms: there
were his white breeches, his green old cut-away tunic of
Marengo. On the hustings!
But suddenly mental deliverance seemed to come to the




A Little Less than Gods


65


young man. He perceived that he could come at least
nearer than he was to that young woman without breaking the letter of his parole. And, signalling violently to her
to await him, he ran around the bales packed on the deck
and down the gang-plank. But only to the end of the
plank. Whereas, she remained at the little distance to
which she had withdrawn!
Looking over her shoulder she continued to insert the
point of her parasol into the interstices of the stones of the
quay. He stood, stretching out his arms. She might, he
desperately feared, take herself even further off. But deliverance came at the sound of a hoarse shout from behind
hi m. On the summit of that slightly descending plank,
his hair now plaited into a pigtail, his hat varnished,
broad-brimmed and buckled, was Captain la Sinse, wearing at his side a great cutlass and nursing in his arms,
across him as if it had been a metal baby, an immensemouthed horse-pistol. He roared hoarsely to the young
man to take no step further.
At the sight Madame de Frejus came swiftly back to
them, carrying the parasol across her at the extent of her
arms and bending the stick in the extremity of her emotion. For there was no doubting her anger. She was right
over against them and though her southern voice was soft
her words could be heard without mistake. She said to the
young man in English:
"If ingratitude was not in my eyes the gravest of sins, I
assure you that I should leave you to your deserts," and
to the Captain in French:
"Captain la Sinse, enough of this child's make-believe.
This young gentleman shall take a walk with me!"




66


A Little Less than Gods


The deepest dismay possible did then overtake that
young man. He could not imagine that so much anger
could be displayed over a mere disorder in his scarlet uniform. He was not even certain that his uniform was disordered. On the other hand how could thoughts on ingratitude be introduced into this matter? As far as he knew
Madame de Frejus owed gratitude to none but the Emperor. He owed gratitude... well, to the parents that
had borne him. And of course to the Emperor and Mr.
Assheton Smith. But how could they come into the
matter?
His heart stopped.
She was telling Captain la Sinse that she had not a
minute to waste. In the state of turmoil in which the Court
then found itself she could not be spared from the side of
the Princess Pauline... Then she had no more than
a minute to spare, for him, George... the shortest of
intervals!
She was bidding Captain la Sinse throw away his pistol.
She neither knew nor cared whether the young officer had
given his parole to remain on that vessel. He must come
off it at her bidding or never see her again.
She cared then nothing about the honour of the soldier!... She beckoned him imperiously with her hand
and moved away. His legs compelled him to follow her.
The captain also followed them, quite close, protesting.
He had the Emperor's express orders; he was still halfminded to shoot the young fellow. She inserted a hand under his elbow, took from him his horse-pistol and tossed it
over the bulwark of the ship so that it thumped hollowly
on the wooden deck. She tapped the piratical-looking




A  Little Less than Gods             67
scoundrel on the chest with the ring that topped the handle
of her parasol.
"The Emperor has since given other orders," she said.
"I give other orders.... Go away.... I will make the
Princess Pauline degrade you. You know I have the
power. So, back to your lair, pirate!"
He recoiled, mumbling; then he climbed the plank.
The young man followed her when she moved shoreward from the ship. Her brown eyes regarded him, full of
trouble; her lips that usually curled upwards in laughter
were now depressed. The young man felt that his breathing turned to sighs. She said:
"We need not go more than a ship's length from the
ship to walk up and down. I could not sit still. You are
said to be confined here for fear of possible assaults. No
one will assault you here for there is no one. Why did you
not come to me last night?"
He burst into incoherent protestations. That then was
the reason for her displeasure. But if she cared enough to
be displeased at his missing an assignation then there was
hope. She said:
"No, no, it is not displeasure. It is simply grief. Because
you are not on the milor's yacht and half-way to Genoa."
He exclaimed: "Oh Heavens! Would you exile me
from..
She said:
"There, be quiet. I cannot be spared more than a few
minutes from my mistress's presence. They are superintending the stowing of the Emperor's chattels. I am
needed."
He was prepared to dilate on his own needs but she




68        A  Little Less than Gods
exclaimed with singular emotion: "Listen, listen, listen!"
as if she had indeed a flood of speech of which to unburden
herself. And indeed she had. He had known before that
she was timorous but she revealed herself as now so fearful that it made him feel monstrous protective and strong.
It appeared, naturally, that there was more in all this
than met the eye-and, for the matter of that, it appeared
that he, George Feilding was an extremely desirable person. That is to say that the King of Elba desired his presence on the expedition that he was about to make. And
when George Feilding asked what expedition that was, she
said that the Emperor was about to set out on the reconquest of France. Of the world maybe, though he said
that that was not his aim.
There had been enough signs in all conscience to make
this no very astonishing news, nevertheless his pulse beat
sharply to hear it and he went on to exult.
"Why, that is glorious news," he cried. "The King shall
enjoy his own again, as the song says, and I shall be of
the party!"
"I have tried to prevent it," she said with agitation. "I
have tried in every way I could to prevent your going. I
declare solemnly that I have left no stone unturned.".
Short of treason to the Emperor!
She had indeed bearded the Emperor himself and the
Emperor had showed himself benevolent but obstinate
and, as she thought, hopelessly wrong. They discussed
these matters before her as if at a family party-or many
of them. And indeed what else could they do, seeing that
her financier-husband was mainly instrumental in raising




A Little Less than Gods


69


the livres on which the Expedition was at first to depend
for its expenses?
"It appears," the young man said, "that he is to raise
twelve million more with the help of Mr. Assheton Smith!"
"Ah, that man!" she exclaimed; "will nothing appease
his vanity but to be a king-maker?"
He bade her remember that she was speaking of the
greatest-the second greatest figure of their world.
"Ah," she said, "I have spoken with him. I did not
know how deep he was in, but I have spoken to him.
I begged him to remove you in his yacht before worse befell you. But he was deaf about it. Now he has got you
into this hobble to satisfy his vain curiosity."
He said with what he thought was something like
dignity:
"Helene, how is this? Why should you thwart me in
what must be my dearest wish? If the pillars of Hercules
are to be rebuilded where should I, as a likely young
man, be but at the rebuilding? Yet you would hinder it!"
She said: "Ah, the Pillars of Hercules!"
He exclaimed:
"You do not... you can not... doubt the success of this expedition. Why, all France will rise as one
man in his support. Poland! Half Germany! Italy! The
very stars in their courses will fight in favour of Freedom!" He added earnestly: "You must not... you can
not doubt this."
"Ah," she replied, "you forget that you are the son
of your father and how many commitments I have. On
both sides. On every side. Yes, on every side the claims




70


A Little Less than Gods


of gratitude cry out on me and, since I cannot in duty
hope for the success of all, what is there for me but to
fear for you all?"
It appeared indeed, when he came to consider the matter, that hers was a troublesome position in the turn
affairs were then taking. There was no doubt that his
father in letting him make the Grand Tour so soon after
the conclusion of the war had seriously enjoined on her
that she should be his monitress and guide whilst he was
in Genoa, at least, and the Italian neighbourhood; and
it was true that his father had so many claims on the
gratitude of her and her French family that they could
not but take the injunction very seriously. And as a
timorous woman she was perhaps not to be blamed if
she feared that a bullet, say, might strike him in the
course of one of the engagements he must witness.
"But ah..." she said, "it is not that. If you went
on honourable and warlike service I might weep by day
and offer night-long prayers, but I would never seek to
keep you from it.... Whilst you fought in Spain I had
many sleepless nights, for, though I hardly knew you, I
was concerned for the feelings of your grey-haired
father, my benefactor. But this is a far worse matter!"
With his superior military knowledge he laughed.
"Why, no," he said, "in the Peninsular there was some
very perilous fighting. Obscure affairs in defiles. Without
glorious names of engagements but with ambuscaded foes
in forests at night.... This affair, if his Majesty
chooses to take me on it, which I hope..'
She said: "George, you know nothing at all of it. Even
if there were no fighting: if all France rises as one man,




A Little Less than Gods


71


for you, the son of your father, there will always be
the danger..."
He laughed again: "No, no!" he said, "there will be
no danger.... What danger?"
She said: "You are so improvident.... All you
young men are so reckless.... There, there, so adventurous... so..."
"How would you have me?" he asked hotly. "This is
an opportunity to go upon an adventure such as no young
man ever... What would you have me do?"
It was as if she wrung her hands. Her eyes indeed
were moist and starred.
"I do not know," she said. "How can you ask me? I
was in hopes your native sense..." She faltered and
finally broke: "Heavens!" she rushed on, partly in deep
grief, partly in petulant nervousness, for she was used to
adulation and to commanding. "It is you that should
counsel me as to where my duty and honour demand that my aspirations should lie. I could not see
your neck running into a noose and not warn you.
But from that to begging you not to do a thing
that the Emperor thinks would be to his advantage...Though, knowing the nature of your countrymen,
I cannot think it will be so. Or it may.... Not
that I have not told his Majesty that I should beg you
not to go with him. For I have so told him."
He said that that had indeed been to beard the lion
in his den and he took pleasure in thinking of that hensparrow flying in the face of the King of the Beasts.
But indeed she had never wanted for courage of that
kidney, for he remembered her flying at him with very




72        A  Little Less than Gods
stinging words when, before then, he had seemed to want
for enthusiasm for the genius of her Emperor.
She said: No, that had not been the case. His Majesty
had been quite reasonable and gentle. His Majesty could
understand matters of honour and shame. He could
sympathize in the anxiety felt for an almost more than
brother by an almost more than sister. He had been
seated the night before by the hearth, warming his shins
at a little fire-flambee-of thorns. He had said that she
was reasonable. That the countrymen of her fosterbrother might of course stigmatize him as a traitor. But
he was inclined to think the reverse. Who now in the
civilized world could any longer doubt his, the Emperor's,
disinterestedness, his love for the arts of peace, his
anxiety for the welfare of his beloved country, France?
Who could doubt the sufferings that had been inflicted
upon that miserable land by the grotesque and obese
monster who had usurped his throne?
He had become enthusiastic; his eyes had lit up; he had
made gestures with his right hand.... She had brought
him gently back to the position of her charge, the young
Feilding. It could hardly be doubted, seeing what the
temper of the English ruling classes had always showed
itself to be, that if that young man had the air of aiding the Emperor he would be regarded as in a treasonable
situation and his whole career would be overshadowed.
The Emperor had said, No, that would disappear when
his own entirely pacific intentions manifested themselves.
He would appear as he was, the benevolent monarchnay hardly so much the monarch as the elder brother
and monitor-of his subjects, the patron of agriculture




A Little Less than Gods


73


and the arts, seated, as he then was, before his fire with
his children re-united to him, around his knees. The
King of Rome was grown a fine boy! He spoke continually of his father, so the Emperor was told.
She said that-purely for purposes of this discussion
-let them say that Lord Castlereagh, the Duke of York,
Lord Wellington and other members of the British
Government took the view that, by quitting the Island of
Elba and marching on the mainland, his Majesty committed a breach of the treaty that had consigned him to
that island and was in open war against their kingdom.
Then, if her brother aided his Majesty, must not those
Lords condemn him as a traitor?
The Emperor asked with heat how it could be alleged
that he had broken a treaty that had never been carried
out and that had been breached by the conspiracies
against his life, or for his kidnapping, of which the most
ample proof existed. No man could be accused of breaches
of treaties who acted merely in defence of his life from
attacks made by the other parties to those treaties.
Neither law nor morality nor the conscience of humanity
could sustain such a view.
She said: "Ah but, your Majesty, there is, it must be
admitted, that possibility. The English, as your Majesty
well knows, are distinguished by no great powers of reasoning but by an unqualified and unprecedented stubbornness."
The Emperor interrupted to say that changes had taken
place in England. The populace of that island laboured
under injustices and oppressions such as made an imminent revolution almost inevitable. He was of opinion




74        A  Little Less than Gods
that, should he land in England, an immense popular
rising would bear him in triumph as, she would soon see,
he was about to be borne on the wings of his eagles to
the capital of France. But still, said he, before her evident distress he could not but give some consideration to
her pleas. And he asked her how it would content her if
he appointed the young man a military attache to his
staff?
"Sire," she said, "your Majesty knows that a military
attache can only be appointed by the Government dispatching him."
He said, well, that was true. But he was determined
to have a British witness, not only to the fact that he
expressed during the whole of his coming expedition the
utmost goodwill to Great Britain and her Allies, but also
to the mildness and humanity with which his operations
were to be conducted and the enthusiasm with which his
return was greeted by his subjects. If he could have found
any other British person to fulfil that purpose he would,
for the sake of her fears, have been contented. But there
was no one else. He could hardly be expected to invite
Sir Neil Campbell to accompany him.
The Princess Pauline coming into the room at that
moment asked what subject was being there discussed,
and when she was told exclaimed lightly:
"Oh la, the nice boy! I had rather you left him here
with us. But if you are set on taking him with you and
at the same time absolving him from the suspicion of
collusion, you have only to take him prisoner and so to
coerce him!"
The Emperor said: "No, no! I will do nothing to bring




A Little Less than Gods


75


that hornet's nest about my ears. The English are extraordinarily jealous as to the liberties of their subjects
abroad. You had evidence of that after the Treaty of
Amiens. Their ministry till then was so detested that, we
had evidence, a revolution was contemplated rather than
vote the expenses of a new war. But, on news that I had
imprisoned a few civilians and travellers, that died away
and all that their government asked for was granted. I
have made mistakes in my time. I have frequently confessed to you, my chickens, that my whole policy in Spain
was faulty in that it brought those insupportable islanders to an undislodgable position on my back. My mistakes I am always ready to acknowledge, but repeat them
I never will.."
"Well, some stratagem can doubtless be found!" the
Princess Pauline said, and came to get the benefit of the
fire, leaning on the mantel beside her brother and dropping petals from a red flower at her waist into the brands.
Then she said: "Ah!" and, to Napoleon:
"Your Majesty lately signed a decree, and not before
it was needed if any of your quarrelsome army was to
remain whole....
She looked down upon the Baronne, who in her earnestness to have her will with the Emperor was upon her
knees... the dark Princess looked down with her oval
eyes and said:
"Little one, your presence is unnecessary here. Go
and show your young friend the new jewel your husband has given you for the dance tonight! I wish I had
such a husband "
Helene had protested that she would not rise from her




76


A Little Less than Gods


knees until the Emperor granted her permission to warn
her foster-brother of the perils in which she considered
him to stand. The Emperor leaned forward to pat her
cheek and said:
"Why, do as you will, Madame la Baronne. It is no
great matter. Rome will not fall for lack of a little cornet
of cavalry. Still, I hope you will not succeed. Nor do I
believe you will be listened to! " He had fallen back in his
chair exhausted by this discussion, which followed on a
long morning over papers that had begun at dawn and
lasted until a half-hour ago.
The Colonel-Count dei Gatti di Vivario, she told the
young man   as he very well knew had always been a
sort of Orson-fetch-and-carry for herself and the Princess
-a shaggy, faithful, spirited Highland retainer such as
you might read of in the works of the Wizard of the
North. So it was natural for her to give him for delivery
the note that he had carried to George Feilding. She
might have spared herself temporary anxiety if she had
not, for led on by melodramatic snorts, starts, rollings
of the black eyes and grunts, she pressed that amiable^
scoundrel until he admitted that the Princess Pauline
had directed him to challenge the young man to a duel
so that he might be kept under parole at any rate until
the Emperor reached Paris.
The stratagem was not without its ingenuity. The
claims of an affair of honour were the only tie that the
young man would be totally unable to ignore; the law
against duelling in the case of so small a force as was at




A Little Less than Gods


77


the Emperor's disposal was perfectly reasonable and at
the same time circumstances of hurry such as surrounded
at that time the Emperor and his superior officers might
very legitimately be advanced as a reason for not trying
the young man and his opponent until the whole Expedition found itself at leisure in the Capital. The young man
if questioned as to his loyalty could perfectly truthfully
assert that he could not avoid fighting a duel without
such stain on his honour as officers of His Majesty's Army
could not endure; the Emperor's ministers if accused
of kidnapping a British officer, or if it were asserted that
the kidnapping of a British officer was a casus belli,
could perfectly truthfully assert that no state could endure the careless ignoring of a statute that was absolutely
necessary to the very existence of its armed forces. The
army of Elba did not contain more than ten field officers
and that the life of one of their most important organizers could with impunity be threatened was not to be
imagined. At the same time, so anxious was the King
that the affair should have no hole-and-corner appearance that he was unwilling that the trial for a serious
offence should take place in an obscure town at the confines of the world; he preferred to give it the full publicity of a city where the offender could be certain of
justice and the assistance of the most skilful lawyers....
So there the duel had been, very carefully explained,
accounted for and discounted, to the satisfaction of his
Majesty and, as the Princess Pauline imagined, to the
satisfaction of all reasonable beings. Or so said the
Count,




78


A Little Less than Gods


But, in this matter Madame de Frejus had to acknowledge herself outside the ranks of reasonable
beings.
And, walking up and down in a space of twenty yards
or so, on the cobbles near the Inconstant, on a mild,
sunny February afternoon, whilst, not so far away, small
cubes of troops, to the sounds of trumpets and commands,
threw themselves about the harbour around the hustings
on which stood their lord and his Marshals, that beautiful young woman confessed that she had made the
Colonel-Count a very nice little scene the night before.
She had tried imploring, commanding, cajoling; she
had tried with every feminine wile, getting on his soft
side. For he had of course a soft side for her-only it
did not go far enough in this particular instance.
She had called him into the little room behind the
Throne whilst the dancing had been going on because,
send what messengers she would to the young man during
the day, he had not been to be found. As a matter of
fact he had gone shooting partridges in the Valley of the
Lion during the afternoon and, hearing at nightfall that
Mr. Assheton Smith's yacht had come into the harbour,
had had himself pulled out to her to call on her master.
But Assheton Smith had gone to call on Sir Neil Campbell.
At any rate it had not been until the late evening and
on the dais that she had seen the young man against
the wall. She had then at once gone into the little anteroom where paper and pens were kept and had written
him that note, calling to her the devoted Colonel-Count
to deliver it for her. That faithful hero, too, it appeared,




A  Little Less than Gods             79
had been seeking the young man throughout the afternoon and evening and, as he was shortsighted except
sword in hand, it is possible that he might otherwise not
have found him and the duel might not have taken place.
"Why," the young man said, "it is fortunate that you
were the occasion of his finding me, for it has all fallen
out very well!"
But: "No, no, no! " she cried. "It is not as I had wished
it or wish it!"
"Nevertheless," he objected reasonably, "I have
worsted this fencing-master under the eyes of Europe.
If you are interested in me, tell me what could be more
to the credit of any man than to have worsted a fencingmaster under the eyes of Mr. Assheton Smith, which is
the same as under those of Europe?"
She said, with some vexation:
"Well, you vanquished a man who was tied to my petticoat strings. For, on my going on my knees to him to
spare you, he consented not to pink you in the forearm, that having been his earlier intention!"
He stood suddenly still, his cheeks became scarlet, he
tapped with his boot-toe on the stones.
"I had rather you had let me be hanged," he said, controlling his words. "If it is gratitude to my father's son
that lets him be a laughing stock... it is a strange
tenderness."
"It is my woman's business to see that you are neither
hanged nor yet pinked," she said.
"It is my man's business," he answered, "to see that
my father's name is differently honoured. Did my opponent say that I did not fight with spirit?"




8o


A Little Less than Gods


She put her hand on his fore-arm.
"Do not shake it off," she said. "It is at times a
woman's duty to wound, by her precautions, those she
loves.... He spoke very praisingly of you.... He
praised your courage, your endurance, your enormous
strength.... Well, he must, that, for his own credit.... He could not mightily laud your skill with the
sabre. How could he? He said you had the creditable
tricks of the British heavy cavalry!"
The young man grumbled between his teeth:
"Ask him how many of their damned cuirassiers' helmets we split in half at Ciudad Vimignione? Bid him ask
5>I  Ney if himself was not there? It is not him they call Le
— Beau Sabreur who will mock at us Heavies.... Besides, Ney is a traitor to that King of yours. I have heard
him say so many times!"
She began to say: "Brother, you mistake..." But
they found that they were gazing into each other's eyes
as if at the sudden sound of a great natural happening.
Hitherto their voices had had to go now up, now down, or
had had to wait altogether for the cessation of sound.
But he was aware that his late outburst of rage had
been to the sound of deep cheering from the crowd that
was backed on the house-fronts. Now the one word:
"Soldiers!" in the voice of their master seemed to fly
between their faces. There had been no trumpet half so
clear. You would have said those tones echoed from the.
very horizon as a brazen ball might rebound from a steel
bowl-rim.
They had to hold their breaths-for a pause that
seemed to last a whole age. The word presaged the con



A  Little Less than Gods             8i
quering of the world; so one single thunder clap will
foretell an all-overwhelming hurricane. Their private
affairs must wait; their hearts must stand still. It is not
every day that you will hear the Master of the World
give out a new chapter-heading to the volume labelled
History!
Napoleon stood, a little, still figure in an immense hat,
waiting unimpressedly whilst the last ripples of enthusiasm died out of the ranks of his men and the serried
disorder of the crowd. He appeared above a hedge of
bearskins and long steel, motionless, all-seeing with his
expressionless, as if resentful, eyes of the eagle. For the
moment he was before all things the military master of
men and it was a singular revelation for those young
people who had known him hitherto rather as the gentlish,
slightly somnolent head of an exiled family or the kindly
father of a tiny country of olive trees and iron mines.
There he stood with a voice that shook the heart in its
beat and with a glance that threatened death for a man
that moved inopportunely. You felt the soldiery say:
We deliver our lives: you will waste none!
"Soldiers!... Friends!... Old  Comrades....
Here are your familiar eagles...
And the eagles-the standards of so many regiments,
each topped with a golden bird and held by a grenadier
-the gay, scarlet, blue and white tints, made a fence
behind him.
The inevitable, brou-ha-ha of voices in applause swept
away his words: they were a good fifty yards from him.
The young man said to the young woman, his cheeks
scarlet, his eyes flashing:




82


A Little Less than Gods


"You imagine he can fail.... Our Old Nosey says
he alone is worth thirty thousand men. And he inspires
each of his men to be worth a hundred! You have a
hundred thousand men before you. I know troops...."
The young woman's breath caught; her brown eyes
sparkled, her cheeks were flushing. She exclaimed:
"Yes! No! He can't fail.... HushI.... He cannot fail. But the solid globe can fall away and betray
his feet.... Hush!"
The strong southern tones of the voice swept over
them like a caress in a pause of the shouting. They found
that they were holding hands; squeezing each their fingers
tight at the ends of phrases.
"These are the eagles that, flying from church-tower
to church-tower of your countrysides, shall victoriously
alight on the topless spires of Notre Dame of Paris..
"Glorious! That's glorious!" the boy said. "The touch
sublime! "
"Oh, is it not?" she asked. "Too sublime for this low
world."
"In the peace that shall lie where falls the shadow of
their wings and surrounded by the hedge of your swords,
the husbandman shall repose beneath his vines." A tremendous burst of cheering, coming from the civilians
aligned against the house-fronts, accompanied an eruption of hats and fans that they cast above their heads.
"And upon the surrounding nations, emulous of your
conditions, shall descend the blessings of peace, freedom and democracy!"
The young man asked: "Why should you cry? Your
eyes are full of tears!"




A  Little Less than Gods             83
She said: "I always cry over the softer emotions. They
are so distant, so far from realization!"
"Soldiers of the Grand Army!" the King of Elba cried
on, "a million foreign troops wrested from you your
standards, a deluge of foreign gold, a tempest of treachery
set on the throne of your free choice the lethargic tyranny
beneath which your fair land groans in its chains. But,
behold, like the phcenix from amidst the fire of Arabian
spices, your standards have again arisen. Soldiers of the
Grand Army of France come, resume your eagles which
your Emperor salutes with his lips!"
They had come insensibly nearer and could plainly see
the pallor of his face, the sphinx's smile that attended
on his closed eyes whilst he took the standard from an
ancient grenadier and set the eagle to his unsmiling lips.
"What does he think?" the young man asked. "What
can a man think at a moment so glorious!"
"Come away," she said. "It is perhaps not safe for
you here at this moment!"
A young, rigid ensign, in the bearskin of the Imperial
Guard, had climbed the steps of the hustings. The King,
in the deep silence, handed him his regiment's flag.
When he dropped the point in a stiff salute to his right
the bright tricolour draped the front of that platform,
the silk rustling audibly.
"You shall die, but that you shall never surrender"
Napoleon said.
"Never, my Emperor," the boy said clearly. "Never
while we have blood in our veins!"
The discipline of the lines which that consecration of
bright-coloured silk had reduced to a silence like a holi



84


A Little Less than Gods


ness, broke then. They cried: "Vive l'Empereur! Vivent
les aigles! Vive la Garde!" and their bearskins and
tricornes and shakos waved, like enormous black flowers,
on their bayonet points above all the heads of the square.
The civilians too broke the cordon and came rushing
and cheering and hat-throwing down over the cobbles.
The cries were a continual undertone of sound; as each
standard was delivered, wavering over their heads, great
bursts like volleys of musketry followed. The doves of
the town circled in great flights, madly round above their
heads; the innumerable sea-gulls of the harbour discordantly screamed their misgivings.
She had got him to a distance, beside the Inconstant
again, for she truly feared that, if not the soldiery, then
at least some of the townsfolk might mob him in that
moment of delirium. The English with their mournful
and bitter persistence had been responsible for His downfall. How were they to know, being ignorant people, that
once Napoleon had again erected his warlike eagles, they
would not be truly serving him by making an end of one
of those Islanders? They would only see that there would
be one enemy the less.
"But they shall soon be undeceived!" the boy said.
"It would be an unthinkable, an unspeakable thing if my
country, after what I shall tell them..."
"Oh, George," she said. "What shall you tell them?
Who will listen to you?"
He began to bubble, intending to tell her that he was
the son of Squire Feilding of such and such a place with
six pocket boroughs at his disposal, and the friend of
Mr. Assheton Smith of Penrhyn who had sixteen, and




A  Little Less than Gods            85
that, if he could not be listened to.... But before he
could get a word out, she had exclaimed, with a hand on
his arm:
"George, do you know Lord Liverpool? He has the soul
of a flunkey and was Mr. Jenkinson! Or Lord Castlereagh? A soul that was wicked and damned at its birth!
Or the Prince Regent? Who is wicked and cruel and
vain! A fat, great, potato-souled, chestnut-wigged lardbladder..
"And you?" he asked. "Do you know all these?"
She said: "Yes. My husband has banked for them as
now he banks for the King of Elba!"
He exclaimed: "Banked! Banked! What is that?"
"It is," she said, "that they lick your boots, or,
when dancing with your wife, praise the shade of her
eyes."
"They have praised the colour of your eyes?" he
asked with despair.
"Every one of those three, for from ten to sixty thousand pounds apiece. There was Mr. Perceval, the Prime
Minister, that Captain Bellingham shot in the House of
Commons.... He owed my husband several thousand
pounds with interest and principal. His admiration for
my jewels was more than you could believe. Had he lived
the world might have been different. But as a sign of the
discontent that seethes in your country, they shot him....So Mr. Jenkinson, the power behind the throne-a horrible man, Lord Liverpool! -is your Prime Minister.... And he is of another interest.... He is of
the gang, with the Prince Regent that pulls the strings
of Lord Cochrane...




86        A  Little Less than Gods
"Why," the boy said, "you shall say nothing against
Lord Cochrane."
"He is in the Tower for swindling with the funds!"
the young woman said, "or was, by the latest advices."
"That is a calumny," the young man cried. "He is the
most gallant frigate-commander that we have. The
Cochranes-the Earl of Dundonald-and my mother's
family are sib and rib!"
"He is a most gallant frigate commander," she
answered. "But he should not have had so fast a yacht
else he and Cochrane Johnston, who is his uncle and, I
think, your mother's cousin, and Butt the stockbroker
and Alexander McRae, the spirit merchant-or perhaps
it is John Random that is the spirit merchant... But,
if they had not had so fast a yacht they could not have
come in before the government packet and so they had
not rigged the market....
"I do not know how you know these things," the boy
grumbled. "You appear, I swear, to be the gay soul of
purity. But if you have danced with the Prince Regent
and who knows whom... For me, I only know that
when Cochrane was in this Mediterranean with his
frigates the French dared not breathe on the waters!"
"You do not exact that I should love him the better
for that," Madame de Frejus said, a little dryly. "I am
after all a Frenchwoman!"
He exclaimed hotly:
"No, no! You are no Froggy! It is true that you have
the lightness of foot and the je ne sais quoi... But you
were born in Kensington of the ancien regime....
Your heart and your love and honour are English.. 2'




A  Little Less than Gods            87
"George," she said. "My brother! My love is engaged
to the King of this Island and his kin; my honour should
engage me, as well you know, to the King of France that
now is, and no doubt to his Allies.... My heart...
I do not know. It is yet to be engaged.... But my
gratitude goes in duty to your father and to my husband...
He exclaimed: "To your husband! Oh heavens!"
"You are romantical," she said. "You mean that because my husband is thirty years older than I, I cannot
show him gratitude for the favours he has bestowed upon
me or to your father because he united me to my husband.... But gratitude does not go by age and if, instead of
being the heir to broad acres, you had known the pinched,
stiff, starving etiquette of my parents' hovel in Edwards
Square, with the Duke this and the Marquis that drawing
swords at cards over stakes of enough snuff to fill their
pinchbeck boxes, you would look at things differentlysupposing that afterwards you were permitted to live
weighed down with jewels in great palaces amongst the
elect of several lands in the company of a man that pulled
the whole world's strings!... how would you yourself
feel toward the man who had given you all that?"
He groaned and then said: "I groan! You make me
groan!"
She said: "You imply: 'What then becomes of the
poets' Chloe and a cottage that your English young girls
are encouraged to sing of, with belts of flowers and milkmaids' stools of spring mornings and dew?' But I doubt
if their hearts ever went with that, for I have heard them
speak of 'establishments' and jointures and houses in




88        A  Little Less than Gods
Berkeley Square.... And it horrifies you to think of
my husband pulling the strings of the world. But so it is
and you must adapt yourself to the world you live in.
Don Quichotte died a number of centuries ago, so I believe."
"I do not know about that," the young man exclaimed.
"But if you mean that your... that your egregious... in short that the Baron de Frejus pulls, as you
phrase it, the strings of that greatest commander the
world has ever known..."
She flushed with anger and her eyes sparkled cruelly:
"It ill becomes you as your father's son to couple with
my husband's name an injurious epithet, seeing that it
was your father who made the match, I being the daughter of his oldest friend and of the best blood in France.... It is well said indeed how salt his bread who eats
at another's board, and well may you and your countrymen be detested for your purse-proud airs and the corruption that by your gold you have caused in this age.
Accursed, thrice accursed race of islanders that you are!"
Shaken and outraged, the young man exclaimed:
"Nevertheless we gave you hospitality-you and the
emigrant nobility of your country!"
"Ah, but what hospitality!" she cried. "Such as you
would be ashamed to offer to a poor relation, and you
think that I, the governess maybe, am well married to the
butler!... But how many of your curds-and-whey
misses would not have given their heads to have danced,
as by the grace and wit of my husband I have, with the
Prince Regent beneath my own roof? Or with Prince
Metternich, and Talleyrand himself. Or to converse




A Little Less than Gods


89


with the Tsar Alexander and your ramrod Duke.. 2"
"Still," he would not abandon his position, "it is a
new sort of thing. I am willing to admit that by your
beauty and birth and wit you have helped your husband into salons into which he would otherwise never have
penetrated. Did I not see him dance last night with the
Princess Pauline?"
"Ah, it is there the shoe pinches," she said. "You could
not have done it for all your broad acres or your spleen!
Or your skill with the claymore, as the Wizard of the
North calls it!... But in short I wish you were sailing now aboard Mr. Assheton Smith's yacht.... Alas,
that she should be so fast. Otherwise you would have
been..."
"Helene," he said; "oh Helene!"
"You may remember that I am la Baronne de
Frejus," she said, "till you can think more civilly of him
who procured that style for me!"
"Why, I am not able to think so well of him as all
that," he said. "How can I?"
"He dances too well with the Princess Pauline!" she
said.
"No," he said, "I do not think that he danced so well.
I did not like his dancing. But if he treats you to your
liking I will think the better of him. Nevertheless I cannot see eye to eye with you if you wish to persuade me
that this new race of nabobs and financiers is of the importance of great commanders and conquerors." Would
she have him think that her husband was of integral
service to the Emperor? Could she here and now say that
in seriousness? He did not think she could. He had heard




9o


A Little Less than Gods


that such men nowadays in some sort swayed the councils of public men. He was not so ignorant as not, in
passing through Paris, to have heard of the husband of
a Madame de... de Recamier whose husband was a
banker and herself the mistress of the Prince of Prussia,
so that many famous personages were under his or her
influence and flocked to her routs.... "I am not completely ignorant of the ton!" he finished. "But there
should be reason and proportion in things....
She had heard him with patience and said:
"Well, let there be enough of this. You will learn wisdom as you bark your shins on the rocks of the way.
I have not much time. The soldiery as you see is
forming into columns. When they go and the Emperor, I
must hurry to the palace. But listen to what I am about
to say and think about it...."
She reflected and began again:
"Whether my husband is indispensable to the Emperor I will not say-except to say that some such man
is indispensable and if it had not been my husband it
must have been another. And I will put it in this
way...." The Emperor could not have set out upon this
adventure without the flood of gold that her husband
poured out for him. Nay, the Emperor could not so much
as have had the trumpets whose brayings and the drums
whose hollow rumblings set their hearts beating-his
even as hers!... He could have no muskets, nor batteries of cannon.... Not so much as men.... He
could not stir hand nor foot without the gold her
husband found him.... You might have brave shows:
martial commanders that flame across the world; eagles




A  Little Less than Gods            91
that float from belfry to belfry.... But today they
are small things.... Perhaps any man could be a great
commander that had her husband and his friends to find
the gold for him! "For sure," she ended, "no man could
without them.'e
The young man exclaimed: "Enough of this, I cannot
stand more of this!" There was reason in roasting eggs;
gold had no more to do with the exploits of commanders
than charity with chitterlings, and one would be as different from the other. She thought him an empty brain
but he had studied campaigning and campaigns of the
past. There was difference in the genius of commanders
that gold will never buy and there was difference in the
trust that subordinates repose in commanders that made
all the difference in the world to the result of campaigns.
In one commander men will repose such trust that they
will march twice as fast, keep the field on a bloody day
twice as long, aye, and die with a profound belief that
they would not be killed. Under Moreau the French Army
of the Rhine moved sluggishly, fought so-so, recoiled
with frequency. The same troops, in the same places,
with the same arms, rations, conditions and what you
will, fought better under the Prince of the Moskwa,
though Ney was no great general and had since, as they
knew, proved himself a traitor foul as Judas.
She said: "No, no, no!" but he fulminated on.
The troops had by now dismissed and there was another, taller, thinner speaker on the platform, though
Napoleon and, by now, the ladies of his family, supported
him there. This was General Lassi, the governor of the
island, who was telling the civilian population that their




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A Little Less than Gods


august sovereign was called to his ancient glory and would
shortly leave the island.
The young man desired Madame de Frejus to mark
that though the troops fought better under Ney than
under Moreau they fought better still under Ney when
Napoleon as First Consul directed Ney's strategy from
Paris, and that when he was among them in person their
excellence was unsurpassed by any troops in the world.
She might think he had little experience in warfare but he
could tell.her this of his own experience in the Peninsular:
when at first they had Bonaparte against them in the
Madrid affair he had pushed them before him like sheep.
His men were everywhere; detachments came down
from inaccessible teeth of the sierras; guns sprang from
the beds of rivers. The allied armies and their commanders were confused and bewildered. But the moment
Napoleon gave over his command to that Prince of the
Moskwa and the rest, the allies made shift to make a
stand here and there. And again, the moment they had
had Sir Arthur Wellesley in place of other commanders
and the French had such generals as Marmont or Soult
or the Duke d'Abrantes, although the terrain and conditions in each case were much the same the relative values
and hearts of the troops were exactly reversed, so that
even the Spanish auxiliaries took heart.
"Why," he said, "I assure you it was like a magic transformation and I too experienced that.... Till Wellington came we were not so much despondent as indifferent.
Poco curante!... We wasted days over cards and wine
and taking booty; we stayed over our bivouac fires till
noon.,. I do not say that when we fought we did not




A Little Less than Gods


93


fight well under such generals as Graham and Blake., _  ~...But the Grand Army under WellingtonTbuffeted) W<
MassenTas ifhie had been a bolster.... And their
cavalry that, under Ney, for I do not say that Ney was
not a good cavalryman, traitor though he proved himself...."
"Why," Madame de Frejus interrupted imperatively,
"I have listened with patience whilst you lectured me like
an instructor of the school of St. Cyr addressing cadets,
but I will not have you, because you are a jealous horsesoldier, fling the word 'traitor' at the bravest of the
brave."
"But it is from his Majesty himself that I have it!"
the boy protested.
"If you had it from your Pauline herself," Madame de
Frejus mocked him, "that should not make it any the
more true. We all today perform duties that are out of
harmony with those we performed yesterday, and the word
traitor is best not bandied. The Prince of the Moskwa is
more heroic than the Cid Campeador, more generous than
Augustus, a greater leader than the Chevalier Bayard.
Today he serves his king-the King of France; to the
Emperor that was he may seem a traitor, but not to lesser
clay like you and me.... In short he is a good, kind
man, who never enriched himself by plunder; and his
wife is my best friend."
"You should have told me that before or I would
never have spoken against him though he gave us cavalry
trouble enough!" the young man said. "But darling
Helene, why do you talk of 'my' Pauline?"
"By the goggling of the eye you may know the weak



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X/ Little Less than Gods


ness of the. heart! " she answered... <'and by your
own taste in dancing.... And let me repeat that if you
speak ill again of the Prince de la Moskwa we shall
quarrel indeed, and your Pauline nor no woman shall
save you.... Of your taste in dancing I say nothing,
only I will say that in kindly disposition, in deportment,
aye, and dancing too, the Prinlce is the spit of the Baron
de Fre'jus.... I have mistaken them the one for the
other in the grey of the morning after dancing...  I
got to know Marshal Ney and Madame la Mare'chale so
well be-cause, at dawn, outside the Tuileries, I jumped
once into the Marshal's carriage, mistaking his back for
that of may good baron. And the Marshal treated me -with
the greatest respect and drove me to Madame la
Mare'chale, who was abed of an influenza.; and the Baron
must come fetch me there, because the Marshal would
not drive moe to Fontainebleau where then we lodged for
fear his lateness should disquiet his lady!"




CHAPTER FOUR


T HEY continued for some time still in desultory conversation, the young man yearning all the time to
introduce the topic of his desperate passion for that lady
in pink percale, she seeking to enlighten him as to the
facts of that day. It outraged him that she should think
him in chains to the charms of the Princess Pauline.
Actually, till the evening before, he had been uncertain as
to which of these ladies held his allegiance and it was possibly to the tacit or implied approval that Mr. Assheton
Smith had given to the amour that he credited the young
man with carrying on with this young woman-it was
possible that to that lofty approval he owed the sudden
outburst of the passion for her to which he was now undoubtedly the thrall. He saw, as if instinctively with the
eyes of his benefactor, that the Princess was undoubtedly
too old for him; but he had, if only by inches, passed the
stage at which very young men are enslaved by beauties
of very developed charms. The Princess was of the most
undoubted beauty still; her affairs had been sufficiently
numerous and famous to make her conquest one that
would gain one credit in the world and her charms were
enhanced by costumes and jewellery, of nights of the most
sumptuous and impressive kinds, and by day of the most
ingenuous, inexpensive cottons, percales and dimities.
But all those charms had vanished like a fall of snow
95




96


A Little Less than Gods


on water: the Princess now appeared to him as an agreeable and amusing brunette but one more calculated to be
his aunt than his mistress. Madame de Frejus shone with
all the glories of youth, laughter, good-humour and approximation of age to his own. She had moreover just such
gowns and jewels as the Princess Pauline: if younger in
design her dresses and heavy collars of pearls and frontals
and tiaras of rubies or emeralds were almost the more
costly of the two, so that by night she appeared like a
young fawn, the favourite of a Sultan, weighed down beneath a gorgeous panoply, whereas by day her cottons and
percales too were of an exquisite simplicity and slightness.
And minute by minute his wonder grew!
It expressed itself by his asking how old she was and
adding that he had been born on May the 14th, 1790,
being thus just short of twenty-four..... Hitherto he
had considered none of these things in her connexion.
She had been a youngish lady amongst several youngish
ladies of a small Court rather free in its manners. The
Marshals of Napoleon were notoriously free in their
amours-and the Marechales no less. The younger womenfolk had run about showing a good deal of their lower
limbs; he had held their wools whilst they wound them
or had walked beside them along the olive paths above
the sea carrying their drizzling bags. Madame de Frejus
had seemed a little more sage than the other ladies, which
might have been put down to her official position at the
court or to the fact that she was, in the end, of the ancien
regime, a pupil of a pupil of Madame Campan, born in
London and the like. And he had put her down as of his
own age or a little less: the daughter of an old French




A Little Less than Gods


97


emigre marquis, the niece and cousin of innumerable
French barons and counts who, whilst expressing unalterable loyalty to their exiled sovereign, had mostly, by degrees, gone over to him whom they had styled the usurper
Buonaparte or the Corsican Ogre.
His father was an intimate friend of her parents, the
intimacy having dated from long before the Revolution.... But that was nothing unusual: the squires of
England, such as had made the Grand Tour in the middle
years of the eighteenth century, had all had their fringes
of friends or pensioners who had been the courtiers of
Louis XVI. So that Madame de Frejus might well feel
gratitude to his father, whilst he might know nothing
about it. His father was not the man to speak much about
his intimacy with or even his benefactions to an emigrE
noble.
That he should have dowered that daughter was also
nothing out of the way. English squires of great wealthand Squire Feilding was of very great wealth indeedwere accustomed to lavishing large sums on dowering
all sorts of deserving young women, daughters of distant
relatives, of house-servants, of tenants, of tradesmen in the
neighbouring county towns. And the Emigre nobility might
well be regarded as much on a level with the tradesmen,
attorneys, doctors or clergy of neighbouring county towns.
So that Madame de Frejus had indeed come a little near
the knuckle when she had said that he had hitherto regarded her as a governess of the family married to a
butler....
She had certainly guided him through several nasty
places since they had met first in Genoa, where he had




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A Little Less than Gods


been apt to utter Liberal opinions such as might compromise him with the Austrian conquerors. She had
warned him against consorting with certain undesirable
families; although she lived in a seclusion in Genoa that
had given her the aspect of the inmate of a harem or a
convent, she had contrived to get him the pas with several
other of the best families. When he had been at last in
something of a scrape with the Austrian authorities because of his outspoken admiration for the Italian underdogs as against their Germanic rulers, she had spoken
words here or there that had prevented his being expelled
from the Italo-Austrian territories and, finally, by a word
to the Princess Pauline she had assured his reception as
persona grata at the little court of Elba.
But he was bound to acknowledge that in his then
fatuousness he had accepted these services very much
as the heir of the family might accept the ministrations
of the ex-governess married to the butler.
The revolution in his mind had certainly come when
Assheton Smith had seemed to take both her charm and
her social position with an unexpected seriousness, and,
surprised as he had been to see the Baron de Frejus in
Assheton Smith's galley stern-sheets for all the world like
any other great leader of the ton and avowedly in an adventure with that demi-god, he was all the readier to
accept her view of herself as having an august sort of
authority in salons where as a queen she danced it round
with potentates from the Prince Regent to Metternich
himself or with Benjamin Constant who owed money to
Madame de StaHl.
Madame de Frejus was talking of Benjamin Constant



A  Little Less than Gods            99
whom she much disliked-at the moment when he put the
question as to her age. For himself he knew nothing of
that fellow and only little more about Madame de StaiA.
But Constant seemed to be a plaguy, disagreeable, discreditable individual.
Helene de Frejus for her part was thinking of little but
making this head-strong young man-to whose family she
was tied by strong liens of gratitude-realize some of the
dangers that he would run in a world that to her seemed
miserably full of pitfalls. So she told him a story of the intrigue between Benjamin Constant, the disagreeable and
opinionative Whig, and Madame de Stahl, the daughter of
the financier, and Madame de Recamier, the wife of the
banker. It appeared that the Baron de Frejus by refusing
in 1813 accommodation to the Whig statesman had done
Napoleon a distinctly bad turn that might be expected to
bear fruit on the Emperor's return to Paris. Madame de
Sta.A had been a persistent enemy of the Hero, and, if
Constant had gone through the disagreeable process of
paying her the money that he owed her, he might in his
irritation have swung round towards the Emperor. But the
Baron having refused him money so that he had not paid
the lady, merely writing her heroic and patriotic letters
and the lady having become pacified-and the statesman
having fallen under the sway of Madame de Recamier
who disliked Napoleon almost more than had Madame de
Stael and whose husband was engaged in speculations
whose success depended on the continued banishment of
the Emperor... all these things together would make
difficulties for the Emperor's restoration. For Monsieur
Constant was a tiresome fellow who had the power and




IOO       A  Little Less than Gods
every disposition to make himself disagreeable to everybody over things like Constitutions.... And that was
only a little part of the thousands of similar difficulties
that would have to be faced, the thousands of pitfalls that
would have to be skirted. There would have to be financial
negotiations, constitutional and parliamentary negotiations; a million, if not two million livres would have to
be found to bribe Metternich if the wife and child of
Napoleon were to be restored to him; as much for Talleyrand who was indispensable. As much for Constant, erhaps, if he were in the mood to be bribed, for on one day
he would have an itching palm and on the next would be
as incorruptibly sea-green as Robespierre himself.
So Helene de Frejus talked since, having accepted the
inevitability of George Feilding's making the expedition
with Napoleon, she wished him to have at least some idea
of what awaited him and Napoleon. She wanted him above
all to avoid making enthusiastic or boastful speeches about
the Emperor's achievements, for she knew that in a world
of cross-currents and spies every word that he did use
would be treasured up against him in case final success
did not crown the Emperor's undertakings. And it appeared to her that the best way to ensure that would be
to inspire him with the view that the campaign would by
no means be over even if Napoleon entered Paris in triumph.
But even at that she did not reveal to him half her
fears.
For she could not get over her misgivings at the fact
of Mr. Assheton Smith's arrival in that port with a yacht
reputed to be the fastest sailing vessel in the world. Fast



A Little Less than Gods


I0I


sailing yachts in her eyes were the chief arms of the
financiers who were her husband's co-conspirators or competitors. She had known and much admired Lord Cochrane
in the days when he had been the dashing commander of
frigates or commodore of frigate squadrons. He had cut a
great figure at her routs in Regent's Park when all London
flocked to the halls or the fetes champetres of the enormously wealthy banker with the beautiful young wife who
had the backing of the haughtiest of the French nobility
and of some of the wealthiest of the British squirearchy.
And, with her knowledge of men, she was reluctant to believe that such a gallant figure as Cochrane with his thousands and thousands of pounds of prize-money gained in
the most heroic of services-that such a gallant captain
would stoop further to enrich himself by the miserable
expedient of rigging the public funds. But, alas, Cochrane
now lay in prison-or he had lately escaped from prisonwhither he had been consigned on a charge of having come
over in a swift yacht, the property of a great house of
financiers, and of having proceeded to London in a specially horsed postchaise bearing false news of a great
victory over Napoleon, years before the power of the
Emperor had in any way diminished. It could not be
proved that he himself had made any money on Change
but his associates and the house to which the yacht belonged had made fortunes each one by selling public and
similar funds on the rise-and also by speculating on the
fall which was certain when the news of victory was contradicted.
She did not think the Baron de Frejus had been concerned in that speculation-nay, she was fairly certain




102


A Little Less than Gods


from the way in which he had commented on the affair
that he had not. But here he was now-and on the fastest
yacht in the world! -in company with a British officer
and a milor who if he was no financier was at least one
of the richest men in the habitable globe. And, as had been
the case with Lord Cochrane, she had sufficient knowledge
of men to know that Mr. Assheton Smith was fine gentleman enough not to dabble on the stock exchange in small,
plebeian matters!... But would he withstand the attraction of gold in mountain heaps: vast gains of gold? In
that contemplation there was something heroic. At any
rate there was nothing low about it. She had seen that
fever work in her husband. Gold in those days had so terrible an attraction because life moved so rapidly that no
fortune of the older kind, Made and consolidated in broad
acres, could pay the piper. If she could suspect-as she
strongly suspected-the Prince Regent of having had a
finger in Lord Cochrane's pie, thus speculating in the misfortunes of the country over which he ruled and which
supported him, whom could you not suspect?
She certainly suspected her husband's attachment to
the cause of the Emperor. Or no, that was not the way to
put it. For the Baron's attachment to the Emperor's person
was in truth very deep and so, by implication, Napoleon's
cause might be considered to be his cause. It was easy to
see that the Baron considered himself as, in his vast
financial adventures, of a like nature to this King of Elba
who was about to set out with six hundred veterans and
three hundred Elban militiamen on the conquest of the
orb of the world. If it would not have been a presumption
bordering on blasphemy he might have styled himself the




A  Little Less than Gods           I03
Napoleon of la haute finance. So that he was quite ready
to engage his talents in the financial service of the King.
But there-and it was the only thing that she had
against her husband, who had always showed himself
generous, indulgent and indeed respectful-it rested. He
was quite ready, with his financial genius and audacity,
so to administer the revenues of the Princess Pauline as
to finance the early days of the expedition. And he was
pretty nearly ready to guarantee that even should the
expedition prove a failure he would be able with his foreknowledge and abilities to ensure that the Princess personally should be no loser. But he was not ready to adventure more than the fewest possible pence of his own in
the King's service. That seemed to Helene de Frejus to
be horrible. With her intense devotion both to the cause
and person of the King, who appeared to her to take
station only next to God, she would have preferred, were
the Imperial cause to meet with disaster, it being the cause
of France, to share in the ruin and to live in sackcloth for
the rest of her days.
The Baron, however, was good-humouredly adamant in
the matter when he talked with his wife-which, of late
years, having proved the seriousness of her nature and
her power of keeping secrets, he had quite freely done.
He was a lonely man. His schemes if they were seldom
nefarious nevertheless demanded not only circumspection
but secrecy and it was almost a luxury to have someone
to whom he could talk with cynical freedom of his plans
and aspirations. He was assured of her perfect loyalty.
That might well not have been the case and she not
much to blame. In the matter of family, compared with




I04


A Little Less than Gods


himself, who was actually the son of a Rhine fisherman,
she was august and unattainable. Her marriage with him
had conferred upon him singular benefits, so that, without
anyone much blaming her, she might well have been content to have little to do with him after the marriage. She
was aware that the marriage had been of professional advantage to him. Without her to grace his halls he might
have waited for ever for the visits of the splendid personages who after that event were pleased now and again,
both in London before the restoration of Louis XVIII, in
Paris subsequently, and later still in Genoa, to grace his
halls. That had been of signal advantage to him. In his
personal contacts with the Great he was not so much
a money-lender as a re-arranger of dilapidated fortunes.
Thus such clients as he condescended to advise rather regarded him with gratitude than took umbrage at being
indebted to him. His reward was the communication by
them of previous information as to news of events of importance. Of that he availed himself in his private speculations. That his Helene knew: what she did not knowor only dimly suspected-was that the relatively small
dowry that had been provided for her by Squire Feilding
had enabled her husband to turn a very bad corner indeed.
At that time he had had to face such a succession of
disasters that he was confoundedly hard put to it to lay
his hand on any ready money at all and her few thousand
pounds in cash had just enabled him to make such ready
money payments as every man must from time to time
face, whilst the social relationships which the mere announcement of his engagement to the daughter of the
Marquis de Dinart, the protegee of Squire Feilding and




A Little Less than Gods


105


favourite godchild of the august daughter of Louis XVI,
had enabled him to make-these social relationships
proved, amply sufficient to let him turn his bad corner.
But even had Helerne had the knowledge to the full, it is
unlikely that the fact would have modified thegratitude
for his generosities that she subsequently felt. Even the
least valuable of the several pearl chains that she possessed would have largely outweighed in value the sum she
had brought him and his continual anxiety for her comfort
and the splendid establishments that he had provided for
her, whether in Regent's Park, at Fontainebleau or in
Genoa, were cause for gratitude indeed to a young girl
who in childhood had known for prolonged periods the
pains of actual hunger and who had never really known
what it was to be dressed in accordance with her birth
and station.
There existed therefore between this pair a mutual
understanding that was founded on the one hand on the
respect that he had for her and the gratitude she felt for
him; whilst his cynical comments on or news of his distinguished clients had hitherto proved a source of constant
entertainment to her, as if she lived within the leaves of a
romance published in frequent instalments.
In personal appearance he was not agreeable. If he
resembled, as he certainly did, Ney, Prince de la Moskwa,
he was an even coarser edition of that heroic figure. On
account of Ney's rustic and old-fashioned appearance,
upon his first proposal to Mademoiselle Augie, the beautiful, brunette royalist and favourite pupil of Madame
Campan, Ney had been refused with indignation and tears
even though the proposal had been suggested and ac



io6


A Little Less than Gods


ceptance enjoined by Josephine Bonaparte, the wife of the
then First Consul.... And Helene remembered her
own tears when first de Frejus had been proposed to her
for her mate.
Ney however had cut off his pigtail, shaved his red
whiskers, taken lessons in such small talk as amused young
ladies, and he and his Aglaii had ever since lived as turtledoves in such fidelity on both parts and in such concord
as had distinguished the families of none of the greater
Marshals of Napoleon's court-and few enough couples
less exalted. Ney however was also a kindly, honourable
and gentle creature. Unlike too many of the Marshals he
had enriched himself neither by plunder nor any other
questionable expedients and when at home he delighted
rather in enhancing the fruitfulness of his several country
estates and in conversing with Madame Agla,6 than in
intrigues for advancement at Court. And Madame AglaW,
tall, graceful and dark, struck Helene as the most charming of her sex. An admirable housekeeper, a tall, dark
gracious harmony.
And it was undoubtedly the wedded tranquillity and
affection of the Neys that had made Madame de Frejus
determine on fidelity to her Baron. He was on the whole
a man to whom not to be faithful-for a young and beautiful woman. His attractions such as they were were of
the mind, and, of course, of the pocket; and it was as if,
unlike the Marshal, he had neither cut off his whiskers
nor attended to his manners. He was thirty-two or three
years older than herself and though when excited he could
be for a time physically active, as he had shown in the
dance the night before, he was usually slothful and had




A Little Less than Gods


107


from the woman's point of view no very agreeable characteristics. Nevertheless her gratitude and her respect for
the ebullient masterfulness of his enterprises made her
not only faithful to him but extremely resentful of any
reflections on his person or his talents. The men of the
courts of the Prince Regent, of Louis XVIII and of the
King of Elba being what they were and her position what
it was, it was not to be wondered at that she could have
swept together from amongst unworthy receptacles for
detritus, at least half a bushel of billets bearing the names
of the greatest and most elegant of the day and several
sackfuls of bouquets bearing cards inscribed with the
deepest of sighs and other evidences of desire for her
person. She had thrown them all into her gilt waste-paper
basket or had had the flowers conveyed to the hospitals
-all except one or two missives that she had preserved
because the historic names of the senders had flattered her
or because of timid earnestnesses in their style that had
touched her or else because she liked the face or the voice
or the figure of the sender. But all these affairs had been
of the most transitory: did any of these suitors return to
the charge he would be certain to begin by pointing out
the unworthy nature of the Baron de Frejus, and then, for
sure, he was sent away with such a flea in his ear as ensured his never returning.
It was indeed the very frequency and usualness of
affairs of that sort all the world over that made her resolve the more firmly to be faithful to her unpresentable
lord. The perpetual stallion-neighing of the men after
the wives of their neighbours and the universal and immediate succumbing of the wives with the inevitable con



io8


A Little Less than Gods


sequent outcry, clamour, racket and recrimination
amongst which she had lived had made her determined
that she at least would have a quiet life and her husband
an unperforated damask waistcoat.
For her knowledge of the life of court ladies of whatever court of that day was of a sort to make her prefer
fireside joys to the most glittering-or the most romantically passionate-of illegitimate attachments. You had.to be either the widow of Monsieur de Clignancourt who: was shot through the stomach after an infinite number of,\ jealous brawls; or, which was almost more disagreeable,
< the wife of Monsieur Felix de la Presse whose cuckoldom
and cowardice were so notorious that whole roomfuls tittered when you entered them on his arm. Or your lover
might be killed by your brothers anxious that your
wealthy and influential marriage should not be dissolved
to their disadvantage. Or perhaps worst of all your fate,might be that of Madame la Duchesse d'Abrantes, wife
of Marshal Junot, whose lover had agonizingly deserted
and betrayed her after she had been through unceasing
brawls and the disclosures of her correspondence which
had been captured by Cossacks in the snows of Russia.
So she had been left, poor woman, penniless, loverless,
after having in vain betrayed her husband with Monsieur
de Chatillon and her country to Metternich, and: after the
public lunacy and ignominious death of Junot....
No, women were weak and men invariably betrayedbetraying inevitably when a woman's needs were at their
sorest, whether Bonapartist marshals or royalist young
viscounts about the Town, and such life was all outcry
and scandal and hopeless regret for heartless desertion.


V




A Little Less than Gods


I09


So, for herself, Helene de Frejus — preferred to have her
husband about her to stall off the too adventurous, and
she looked back with regret to their days in Genoa where
the custom of Italian good society exacted that a wife
should live behind iron window bars and never go out
lacking a duenna moustached like a grenadier.
Thus she doubly regretted that the Baron had gone off
with Assheton Smith in his too swift white yacht. He left
her exposed to the most reckless spirits of Napoleon's supporters and, she dreadfully feared, was gone with the milor
on a financial expedition that might aim at making a profit
out of Napoleon's discomfiture quite as much as out of his
success. That would be unforgivable!
Latterly, indeed, her entertainment in the Baron's
society had more than a little palled. His disquisitions on
the state of society and the world in general had taken
almost too exclusively, in private, the shape of declaiming
on the difficulties that would attend Napoleon's attempt
to reach Paris and the appalling complications that would
meet him if he ever got there.... He would have to return in the guise of a constitutional ruler-but how could
he play the constitutionalist? He would have to bend his
neck to a plebiscite that he would not have the organization to coerce; there would be millions of money to be
raised, and whence was the money to come with an empty
treasury such as the Bourbons would take care to leave
him and a disorganized system of collecting public taxes?
The Baron had no idea.
So, in private to his wife, the Baron had lately talked
unceasingly and in that way he had done a great deal to
weary and depress her. It was not that she did not largely




11O


A Little Less than Gods


share his views, the reasons for her doubts being largely
the unscrupulous habits of mind, the ostentation and absence of fidelity of the men of her time, so that, if the
Emperor's success were not rapid and overwhelming she
did not see how any large measure of support or even
common loyalty would be afforded to his government.
She foresaw, indeed, almost as clearly as her husband the
difficulties and.perils that would beset the new undertaking, but she resented having the possibilities of failure
continually brought to her attention. She wished, the die
being-cast and the crossing of the Rubicon almost set out
on, to forget these doubts and think only of that which
had already attended so many miracles of unlikely success-the star of the Man of Destiny. If the Duke of
Wellington, Napoleon's chief rival, now, in military fame
could say that the presence of Napoleon alone with his
army was worth thirty thousand men, was it unreasonable
to think that the star of Napoleon's destiny was equal
to the raising of as many million pounds or the unmasking and frustrating of as many thousand treacheries....
And she could not get away from the uneasy feeling
that her husband, by dwelling on the difficulties in which
Napoleon might find himself-that with that sort of talk
he might be aiming at preparing her mind for a proposal
at least financially to betray the Emperor. He might very
well say-she had heard him say in cases where her
heart was not seriously engaged-that merely to take
a profit from the falling of prices of the funds of a nation
was not necessarily to do any harm to that nation. But
from that to taking measures to make those funds fall
was a very small step indeed.




A Little Less than Gods


III


So though she was out of heart at any rate for the time
with the Baron, she could not but regret his having gone
away in that white yacht.... White was a colour that
brought ill-luck, and the crew of that yacht not only
dressed in white but wore stocking-caps of scarlet woolthe cap of Liberty of the Revolution that again could be
regarded as no agreeable symbol since the King and his
expedition could expect little but the most bitter opposition from what remained of the old-fashioned Jacobins
of the Revolution. She could not imagine that Mr. Assheton Smith was a Jacobin or that he would purposely make
his crew sport that symbol of theirs. But there it was, the
whole affair was disagreeable and left her in no pleasant
mood.
Moreover, the very swiftness of the yacht had contributed to forcing the young Feilding to remain on the
island till the King was ready to start-to remain temporarily really a prisoner. In this way: The question about
violets that Gatti di Vivario, the night before, had put to
the young man and the young man's answers were in very
serious fact part of a ritual by which the Imperialists
then in France recognized each other. Napoleon had detached four hundred of his small army to go to the mainland-four hundred of his trustiest-for no other purpose
than to spread that as if Masonic formula in places where
it could be useful-and the young Feilding's apparent
possession of that knowledge had absolutely precluded his
-permitting the boy to get away-in the swiftest vessel in
the world!
The boy might be perfectly trustworthy but he was in
possession of knowledge that was sufficient to hang several




II2


A Little Less than Gods


hundred thousand-a couple of million Frenchmen-for
the conspiracy had by now assumed immense dimensions
owing to the unpopularity of the Bourbons, from whose
yoke all France prayed for deliverance. Was it then thinkable that the boy should be allowed to go? The yacht
might sail straight for Toulon and that same day the news
might be in Paris, for the weather was perfectly clear and
the telegraph would therefore almost certainly be working.
So, once the Colonel-Count had that news, the young
Feilding's fate had been sealed. He had had to fight his
duel and to give his parole in circumstances that precluded
his communicating even with persons on the island. The
authorities had indeed very nearly maintained their embargo on the yacht and the person of Assheton Smith
himself; but their fear of embarrassing a person so important, their need of money and the outcry that the
Baron had made had been sufficient to lead them in his
case to take the chance. The Baron had represented that
he had already had sufficient trouble in raising his initial
twelve million livres: here was a nabob, a milor, the richest man in the world, who avowed himself willing to raise
a similar sum with a stroke of the pen. They could not
think of imprisoning him. They had not.
But that fact alone was cause of further misgivings to
the girl. She had now no doubt that the milor had come to
that unlikely island by pre-arrangement with the Baron.
Why else in the world should he have come? And the fact
that she already doubted the loyalty of her husband made
the affair seem doubly sinister. It was true that by giving
passage to Sir Neil Campbell they prevented his seeing
the preparations for, and the departure of the expedition.




X1 Little Less than Gods           II3
But that, even if they wanted the expedition eventually
to fail might very well agree with their plans. To nip the
expedition in the- bud would be to see the funds of the
French kingdom very little affected, but to let it prosper
up to a certain point and then overwhelm it would be to
cause such a commotion in the state funds of all Europe
thatheby might well aggregate, with their foreknowledge,
fortunes that would stagger the imaginations of mankind.
Thus Madame de Frejus was in no pleasant frame of
mind; indeed her nerves were very much deranged-so
much deranged that she said to herself with a sort of distracted vindictiveness that if she was ever going to be unfaithful to her husband, then or thereabouts would be the
time. It would give her no particular pleasure and would
serve no particular purpose but it would at least avenge
the Emperor on the person of a very untrustworthy servant.
So it was with a certain peculiar shock that she realized
that the young Feilding was not only setting out on making the most outspoken love to her but that he was beginning by discrediting the person of her husband although
she had already reproved him for so doing.
The sensation was very peculiar; it was as if a beast of
prey had looked at her with green eyes at a moment when
she was perfectly protected. For indeed, by this time, she
was really so hurried that there could not be the least little
moment of time to devote to the softer emotions. Hitherto
she had regarded him as the sort of large gentle waterhound that you might like but need not love. And she
had three copies of three several proclamations to write
out for his Majesty, her hand being especially suave and




II4       A  Little Less than Gods
legible. And she had to think out some sort of answers to
this young man-such as, when he said that he could not
sleep for thinking of her charms, she must say that so
many men had told her the same that she must needs believe it in his case. That gave him quite a lot to talk of
for himself: in his jealous rage he was ready to tear the
topmasts off the ships.... Her specially beautiful proclamations were meant for the mayors or governors of
Antibes, Toulon, Grenoble or Lyons if no printer could
be found for them owing to the rapidity of the Emperor's march. So her handwriting would go out attached to the signature, "Napoleon, Emperor of the
French!"... But of course it might not be impossible
to love that boy. His mad rage aged him. His features
were drawn taut like those of a hard-bitten rider! That
would make a pretty kettle of fish.
She also had to be certain that the stars on his
Majesty's tiresome bottle-green garment were properly
brightened by the pantry-maids and his third pair of shorts
repassed. Emperors needed such a wilderness of clothes.
Blue with embroidery for parades; grey capotes for
route-riding in mist; bottle-green with an infinity of giltlaced olive leaves for audiences to prefects or Academicians. There was not a woman at the court, from Madame
Mere and the Princess Pauline to the smallest kitchen
maid, that had not her finger-tips needle-pricked....
Well, he was aged! He had fought a very passable duel:
that took you out of the cockerels' pen. Danger! Danger!
She knew, from having raised spaniel puppy families, that
an age came when the sexes must be separated.... A
passable duel! He had been said to have tremendous




A Little Less than Gods


Is5


strength. He had an ingenuous, honest cast of countenance; she had always lately liked to look on it but she had
thought he had -been Pauline's. She remembered to have
thought that that had seemed a little ridiculous. Then..
Danger! Danger!... She must run. The sexes must be
separated.... Well, she would be seeing this young man
-though she was not going to tell him so! -almost every
day for a long time. For as long as it took to get to Paris
with the Army. She would have to accompany her husband, who had to accompany the troops. Because there
were certain papers that she had to sign. It was one of the
few things that she had not liked about Monsieur le
Baron-that he juggled with her jointure papers to protect himself from his creditors. Only at times of extreme
risks.... Well, this was a time of extreme risk..
What then if the young man were very strong: a perfect
Hercules and Orlando Furioso in one? The Baron must
risk that. The young man would as like as not ride beside her carriage in the rear of the troops. For who could
tell that the peasants might not stone the carriage? Then
she would need her Hercules!
She slightly picked up her skirts and ran. She ran away
like an antelope without ever troubling to find a repartee
for that young man. The Emperor's old clothes awaited
her. Poor dear, he had been very neglected. And her handwriting was to be broadcasted throughout France, married
to His!
When she had run fifty yards or so she said: "Oh, poor
fellow I " and, dropping her skirts, turned round and
raised her gloved hands to her lips. She filled the kid-palm
with kisses and then, like a little diskobolos, tossed the




ii6       A  Little Less than Gods
kisses in his direction where, by the ship-side, he stood uttering imprecations, both his hands on a level with his
shako or higher.
To have thrown those kisses had been no bad way out
of the dilemma. It had been infantile, such as sister might
offer to brother. Still, kisses were kisses: if they did not
imply any promises delivered in that way they need not
be considered a deterrent. Not of necessity! They might be
regarded as keeping him to heel. Strictly to heel. Until
something fortunate occurred. The Baron was a heavy
man. She wished him no ill, even if she wished him a
thought less well than she had when coming down to the
ship an hour ago. But if one is a very heavy man, eating to
the further end of copiousness and drinking as sea caverns
suck up the sea.... Or these divorces... Madame
de Recamier had twice begun to divorce her financier!
So she might consider herself to have done not so badly!
If she had not fully persuaded the young man as to the
compromising nature of his accompanying that expedition,
yet she had him at least firmly tied to her apron-strings
so that, without bad luck, she might keep him from making
too much of a fool of himself!
The harbour clock struck five. Good heavens, five, and
all the forks of the Emperor's travelling case probably
not yet found. She ran faster and faster over the flagstones.




CHAPTER FIVE


T HE following days of still ship-gliding in light
airs came back to him mostly as memories of
ferocious proclamation-writing. He had sat on a campstool up to a cask that had its head pierced to hold an
inkwell and had written alternately frantic appeals to his
Helene and the grandiose phrases that Napoleon addressed to every class of the population that he hoped to
re-capture. He thought he should never see her againor never till they got to Paris, which was an eternity. And
there, as like as not, she would be shut up as in a harem!
She had moreover spoken to him with such cruel mockery that his senses seemed numbed.
But everybody copied proclamations, the troops and
many of the officers producing, with tongues that followed
their pen-points, copies that surely no eye would ever be
able to read. Nevertheless France had to be plastered with
Napoleon's proclamations and a thousand or so of souls
aboard that flotilla wrote away at them night and dayproclamations addressed to the French, the Walloons, the
Germans, the Poles, the Neapolitans. To the effect that the
return of the Emperor meant the restoration of liberties
and eternal -peace! It might be many days before they
could get at a printer and, in that era when newspapers
were rare and news travelled slowly, a single proclamation
stuck on the door of a village church might affect and
instruct a whole commune and its neighbours.
II7




ii8


A Little Less than Gods


There were incidents on the voyage, of course, but they
only vaguely came back to him because of the impassioned
state in which he was. Once all the troops were sent below
and he himself was asked to walk the poop in as visible a
way as possible-with the aim of giving the idea that his
scarlet uniform might betoken that there were British
troops aboard the Inconstant. There was then a cruiser
called the Zephyr of the French navy alongside them anfd a
conversation took place between Tailhade, the mate of the
Inconstant, and the captain of the other vessel, who appeared to be an old friend, Tailhade inviting his friend the
captain aboard to take some refreshment, giving news that
the Inconstant was bound for Genoa. The Zephyr was for
Livorno.
The dreadful nature of his interview with Madame de
Frejus had deprived the young man almost of the powers
of attention, so that he could never be certain of what
actually passed-or of all that actually passed-on that
expedition until they had got very much farther than they
then were. He would hear the captain of the Zephyr exchange a sentence with Tailhade and then his poor mind
would wander back to how Madame de Frejus had said
that she owed final gratitude to her husband and as to
how he would have answered her if she had given him
the chance. So in after years he would find himself
amongst men who discussed the escape from Elba and
alleged details such as he had never observed and yet he
would hardly be in a position to contradict them.
Thus, though he was not unaware of the dreadful excitement and suspense that seemed to make the whole of
the Inconstant tremble to her keel, nevertheless it was




A Little Less than Gods


"I9


universally alleged that when the captain of the Zephyr
asked how the Emperor was it was the Emperor himself
who had answered that his Majesty was in his usual
health. The Emperor had been below the steps up to the
poop, waiting to rush up and declare himself if the necessity arose; he had indeed been looking up at the young
Feilding with an absolutely impassive face, his head a little
on one side as if to hear the conversation the better. Thus
it was unlikely that Captain Andrieux could have heard
the Emperor had he so answered; besides both Andrieux
and Tailhade used speaking trumpets and did not hear
each other very well, so that it was eminently unlikely that
the Emperor, who had none and was boxed in below, could
have made his voice carry to the other ship. Nor indeed
was the Emperor one likely to indulge himself in such
undignified humour-on the other hand he might have
said dryly to Count Bertrand who was near him that he
was in his usual spirits-which were those of confidence
in great enterprises-and the young man might not have
heard it.
The Zephyr, however, sailed away and the young man
went back to his tub, inkwell and writings. Incessant conferences went on between the Emperor and Bertrand,
officer after officer being called to the Emperor's cabin.
Once or twice Feilding himself was invited to go before
the Demi-God and give information as to matters that to
him seemed curious and obscure. Thus once he was asked
as to the uniform of the various branches of the Regiment
of Artillery in His Britannic Majesty's Forces; again as to
other details of uniform; again as to the popularity of
Caroline, Princess of Wales.




120


A Little Less than Gods


And having reflected on what Madame de Frejus had
said to him, he had very politely refused to give any information as to the details of uniform, though to the best
of his information he answered that the Prince Regent's
Consort had had a large and powerful following in England until she had left the country to settle down in
Naples. Napoleon, fixing him with his penetrating glance,
had asked him: were the adherents of the injured Princess
of Wales really so much the adherents of that lady or
were they merely obstructors of the government?.
The sole reason that the young man could see for such a
question was that Napoleon might entertain the idea of
seizing the person of the Princess who was at Naples
and coercing her into consenting to leading an expedition
into England or at least to signing a proclamation demanding the abdication of the Prince Regent. And that
being the sole perceptible reason for such a question, the
young man answered-and true enough-that he knew
nothing at all about the matter. He added that Madame de
Frejus could undoubtedly have given the Emperor correct
information upon that point, the poor fellow having the
faintest hope that the Emperor might send for his Helene
though how she was to be brought there he did not know.
Once he had the honour of dining with the Emperor. It
was true, the legend that said that on campaign he had
always a new fowl spitted and roasted every half hour so
that he might eat at any moment of the night or day. Presumably he was inclined to eat that day at about the usual
dinner hour of the young man-half past two-for Feilding found his Majesty seated at table in the little cabin
full of red velvet couches and gilding, tearing away at a




A Little Less than Gods


121


partridge. For Perducet or Perduca had succeeded in
bringing on board a great number of those birds and
spitted them alternately with fowls in the hope that the
Emperor might consume some of that health-giving game.
For time enough to tear up and devour that food Napoleon sat silent-plunged, you would have said, in a
gloomy reverie. But the young man knew enough of the
multiplicity of things about which the Emperor must
think to be aware that that indefatigable brain was framing some project-as it might be, the means for taking by
assault the city of Grenoble, for from time to time he
made a mark with a gold pencil on the damask of the
table-cloth. His hands were extraordinarily white and
waxen. It was a singular thing that the young man could
never after remember what was the colour of Napoleon's
eyes-but indeed no man ever remembered the colour of
his eyes. That secret has gone to the grave.
They were most likely blue and it was no doubt the
blaze of blue eyes in the pallid face with the dark hair
that kept mankind from looking into them. At any rate
our young man could never support his glance for more
than a short glimpse, yet, though he looked down, he was
aware when the Emperor was looking at him.
The food finished, Napoleon remained sitting, rather
lumpish, his yellow waistcoat with all the lower buttons
undone. He was fingering a wine-glass that he had just
emptied of Cap Corse wine, twirling it slowly by the stem.
Suddenly he said:
"Would you sign a proclamation to your countrymen?"
The boy started at the sudden words. But: "No," he
said resolutely, "I will sign no proclamation to my coun



122       A  Little Less than Gods
trymen unless your Majesty should put great pressure on
me and then only if it were such as I agreed with in my
conscience. You are aware, Sire, that this your enterprise
has my humble but ardent support."
"But you stop it at the bounds of your island. And
truly it would harm you in your own country. I am aware
of that and shall put no pressure on you." He said he had
been about to ask the boy to sign a statement-a proclamation-to the effect that his conviction was that the
Emperor's return meant peace and well-being to the world
-that France, restored to her prosperity, with all the
improvements in her agriculture that the Emperor had
promoted, would shed the light of these inventions
amongst the surrounding populations-and Napoleon
finished: "You are aware that there are famine, pestilence and revolt in your own country and most other of
the countries that lie around France are in a desperate
condition...." The young man coloured; nay, his eyes
filled with tears.
"I am aware of the great favours that your Majesty
has bestowed on me. I know nothing of the state of my
country, having been absent from it for several
years...." He could avow what his Majesty said as
to his intentions. He could avow it with a full conscience
for he fully believed it.... But, in short, this was just
such an action-to sign a proclamation -as Madame de
Frejus warned him against. "And," he added, "I have, I
know not why, an instinctive repugnance for the idea."
"Well, it would harm your career," the Emperor said
indulgently; "I have too much honour for the cloth that




A Little Less than Gods


123


both you and I wear in different colours to press you. Let
it then go! "
The Emperor sat, his eyes half-closed, twirling and
twirling the stem of his glass; the young man's cheeks remained flushed and hot with mortification. He hated himself for having refused this Demi-God anything; yet undoubtedly that had been in the spirit of his Helene's
recommendations and the idea inspired him with great
repugnance. Why, he could not himself tell very well. He
knew that the Emperor was not at war with England and
was convinced that he cherished no designs against that
country. But bring himself to it he could not. And he exclaimed:
"I am aware that a sovereign must not be questioned,
nevertheless, may I not ask your Majesty to consider
how tiny a position I occupy in the cosmogony of Britain's
Empire and of how little avail my voice could prove?
May I not draw your Majesty's attention to greater
signatories? May I not suggest, Sire, that you invite my
patron Mr. Assheton Smith to be one. That he would
readily do so your Majesty may believe when you consider
that he is supporting this expedition with his unbounded
resources."
"He is supporting this expedition!" the Emperor said
without emotion. "Well, the admirable de Frejus has his
mysteries.... But if the milor supports...
He appeared somnolent. Suddenly he said like a thunderbolt:
"Cannot you then see that more and more the nations
of the earth support me? Are you not aware that I have




124


A Little Less than Gods


only to plant my feet on the cliffs of Dover and all the oppressed of your country would flock to meet me and triumphantly we should march on London as tomorrow we
shall march triumphantly on Paris?"
The young man thought on Madame de Frejus.
"Sire," he said, "I am no Tom-Paine man, nor no
Radical. Nor do I believe that your Majesty would stoop
to obtain the support of the rabble!"
"Mon lieutenant," his Majesty said, "you have little
knowledge of your own country."
"I am amazed at the knowledge that your Majesty
possesses," the young man answered, "but it is all against
what I myself know. I do not believe that the rabble could
ever take heart enough to march on the metropolis! "
"Young sir," the Emperor said with some heat, "I assure you that the whole face of your country is impassable
because of the marching of rebel bands."... Even as
Louis the Eighteenth had neglected to abolish the droit des
reguliers so at the end of the last war. The British rulers
refused to abolish the tax on the incomes of the poor,
though they had promised it. War with America had cut
off the corn of the poor. And what America did with English hands and genius should not England in her turn
achieve? The boy had talked of rabble, but it would
astonish him to hear the names of statesmen and politicians of his country-aye and of substantially wealthy
philosophers of the middling classes, that visited the Emperor in Elba, offering him sympathy and assistance
against his oppressors. If latterly he had cut off intercourse with almost all English visitors except those of the
best-bred class, it was because he was afraid that your




x4 Little Less than Gods


125


Sir Neil Campbell would report to the powers that be in
England that he was conspiring with their subjects against
their throne. But he had still the names of those correspondents, and they were thousands.... No, with scandal assailing the occupants of the throne, with hatred
so great as is felt for such ministers as Liverpool or Canning or Castlereagh, with starvation, treason and red
rebellion amongst the common orders, what emotions of
liberty, what chords in the lyre of Freedom, should not
sound across England at the news that the eagles of Napoleon were again on the wing and Napoleon once more
at his old task of bringing freedom to the oppressed and
food to the starving!
It was impossible that dejection should not sweep over
the young man at this picture of the disasters of his
country uttered in this earth-shaking voice. It seemed incredible that the green and fertile pastures over which his
ancestors had reigned and which he himself must one day
own-it seemed to him impossible that those green and
fertile acres could know the shadow of disaster. Nevertheless he saw, in his mind's eye, the great elms above his
father's house drooping as if with blight, the grass blackened by frosts, the wheat trampled by innumerable feet,
the rose-gardens rooted up, the house-the great house
itself, windowless, half unroofed, desolate.... So great
was the spell of Napoleon's voice!
Tears filled his eyes and then he perceived that the
Demi-God himself had veiled the lightning of his
glance.
"Why," he said, "you are an admirable young man and
I would not have you depart by one peccadillo from the




126


A Little Less than Gods


dictates of your service and of your love for your country."
The boy then sobbed.
"Sire," he said, "I am so well assured of your goodness...your benevolence... your desire for peace...
"Why," the Emperor said, "you shall do what you will
by word of mouth or by letter to your countrymen."
There were, he continued, already so many of them
assured of his benevolence, disgusted at the way in
which he had been despoiled by the Bourbons or discontented with their rulers, that it should need but a very
few more-a very slight push to the snowball-to make
Liverpool and Castlereagh-nay and Wellington himiself-realize that even were an assault on an innocent
and glorious country such as France no crime, the
attempt should be unavailing for lack of men to follow
their standards.
An immense dejection overcame the young man. They
sat silent. Napoleon had crossed his white hands on his
generous yellow waistcoat; into that space of gilding and
red velvet through the open casement, over the tufts of
violets that Perducet had planted in the window-boxes
came the rippling conversation of wavelets about the
stern and rudder, for the day was so smooth that they
had scarcely steerage-way.
These light winds had much delayed them. It was then
the 28th of February and they had only lately sighted the
road of Noli, making for Frejus. They had hoped to be
far from Capraia on the morning of their sailing but dawn
had found them between Capraia and Elba-and so it had
been with the passing of Leghorn and all the way. But




A Little Less than Gods


I27


they might soon hope to be off Golfe Juan. They had
sighted Antibes at noon.
Dejection!... For, if he knew little of his country
itself at the moment and if Castlereagh and the others
were just names to him, he knew enough of the Duke of
Wellington and for that matter of the British soldiery to
know that, once the hereditary enemy were in the field,
there would be no holding them, at least, back. The Emperor knew an astonishing amount about England-but it
was as if he knew it queerly, not so much wrongly as with
such a distortion as you may see in certain mirrors that
broaden you out, diminish you or turn you all askew...
So that there he stood between, as it were, two beloved
but irreconcilable forces-as if his father should conceive
a hatred for Mr. Assheton Smith and Mr. Assheton Smith
for Squire Feilding. To his father he owed loyalty-but
what admiration to the other!
There came into his mind some verses-Pope, maybe,
or more likely, Dryden:
"Less than a god, they said, there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell
That spoke so sweetly and so well.."
Less than a godhead could hardly inhabit that frame
that confronted him across the table-there were omnipotence, benevolence, humour, the lightning flash, allknowledge, the power to exact awe, fear, affection, hatred
and devotion to the death. In thousands of thousands of
men!... But Gods have been slain! Gods have been
slain!... And the unimpassioned face of the Duke of
Wellington rose before his eyes.




i28


A Little Less than Gods


Once, carrying a request for reinforcements, he had
had to wait, mounted, for ten minutes, before the Duke
could give him attention-on a hill, dominating a stretch
of hilly territory. The Duke had sat motionless, smoke
rose, lit with murky flashes; the thunder of cannon came
up from the valleys. The plumes of the cocked hat did not
stir, the cloak draped the rider to the saddle; the horse
distended its nostrils but never stirred....
And the boy had had the sense of a force that was
neither human nor omnipotent-but superhuman and
irremovable-and coldI
The Duke had said something, not very memorable, to
an officer at his stirrup. Or rather, it had seemed not very
memorable, because of the coldness of the tone and because in the same tone he had ordered that his servant lay
out a meal for him, there beside his charger's hoofs.
It had been: "We have them on their left. The guns are
in position....
He finally confronted the boy, unimpassioned, aquiline, slightly yellowish in complexion because he had lately suffered from an affection of the liver resembling jaundice; his eyes thin-lidded and cold.
"Tell your general," he said, "that I have no reinforcements to send him. I cannot manufacture troops.
He must hold his position. Vaillant will be withdrawing
troops from in front of you for his left...
He said to the officer at his stirrup:
"Better put that in writing. This boy is young!" He
had added to the boy, as if speaking from a great height:
"You will find that their attack, when you return, has
sensibly slackened if it have not ceased altogether!"




A Little Less than Gods


129


It had frequently since occurred to Feilding to wonder
why the Duke should have addressed those words to him.
He was of no importance; there could be no reason for
the Duke to deign to reassure him.... But it was no
doubt in that way that great commanders spread their
reputation for infallibility, the subalterns and recruits saying one among another such words as: "I heard the Duke
say this or that: and it came true! Trust the Duke! "
As a matter of fact it had not come strictly true, for, on
returning to his corps, he had found the enemy cavalry
in among the guns and his own squadron almost annihilated.... Yet it had been near enough, for soon
after the whole enemy forces had been in retreat, owing
probably to the pressure on their left. So that if the
Duke's prediction had not been exactly fulfilled it had
been because the enemy had been too slow in communicating their orders for retreat. That had been hardly the
Duke's fault.
At any rate the Duke remained for the boy a bronze
statue and implacable.
How different from the Demi-God before him, who
exhibited merely a kindly somnolence till it suited him to
throw his lightnings or employ his indefatigable industry!
He imagined a confrontation of the two-Napoleon all
bonhomie, vivaciousness, geniality and persuasion-or for
the matter of that threatening. And the other cold-snakecold, laconic, icily penetrating.... Death against Hercules, from the Alcestis!
Dogged endurance, the cold patience of the snake, are
admirable qualities-are usually irresistible. But there will
at times arise in men a flame of passion, as coming from




130       A  Little Less than Gods
the godhead, that will overwhelm almost all things. He
remembered in the Peninsular having watched two men
fighting insanely. French cuirassiers had been driven back
on a long front. There could have been no other French
within a quarter of a mile -but a French corporal of
cuirassiers as if insane had gone on in an unending attack
on a trooper John Hance, with George Feilding and his
squadron watching and cheering.... Naturally only
for a minute or two!
The Frenchman on a rather light horse, reined in or
let out, snorting, his sabre flashing-in a sunlit valley of
the Sierras, John Hance revolving his cart-horse with
hardly more than a pressure of the knee. Once he even
used the back of his rein-hand to wipe his streaming
brows, the  Frenchman   having  recoiled  to  charge
again..
Naturally they-he-had had to stop the combat: they
could not afford to lose John Hance who was an incomparable preparer of Spanish farmyard roosters for cocking contests, and.unrivalled at the discovery of badgers,
foxes and wolves for the officers' recreations.... No,
they could not afford to lose John Hance, but Feilding
could not help still regretting that he had never let that
combat come to an issue.
He had sent four immense troopers to get between the
Frenchman and Johnny, telling them not to hurt the
cuirassier if they could help it-and that French fellow
had swerved his horse aside within a hair's breadth of
their stirrups and gone galloping over the valley bottom
uttering singular yells of triumph and brandishing his
sabre on high... One of Ney's own men, no -doubt!




A Little Less than Gods


'3I


Somehow Ney had a marvellous gift of inspiring his
men with a breath of the mad godhead that inhabited his
own body.... An incredible fellow, that Prince of the
Moskwa whom Napoleon himself had called, after Friedland, the Bravest of the Brave, whom all women called
le beau sabreur, but Madame de Frejus, the Most Noble
of the Noble!... And the spit of her husband! His
double!
Stories of him filled the world.... But the one that
had most impressed George Feilding had told how once,
at the end of a battle-a victory-after he had had three
horses killed under him and had been lost to sight, exhausted and at the end of his physical tether, he had been
found, flogging the barrel of a cannon with the flat of his
sword and uttering hoarse cries of exhortation.... Imagine Wellington in that occupation!
Imagine him indeed in the present situation of Napoleon!
They-the Expedition and Napoleon-were at that
moment in a position of the gravest, the most excruciating
peril and excitement. They were off Antibes and a small
fort called St. Eustache-half way between the two. Six
miles to the eastward were a line of battleships and a
sloop; they themselves were five miles from the coast.
Supposing the leviathan should take notice of their small
flotilla; supposing she should even signal them? Supposing the forts at Antibes and St. Eustache should be
garrisoned by men for the moment loyal to Louis
XVIII.... Nay, Napoleon with his omniscience knew
that the town of Antibes was under the command of the
Marquis de Bevers-some name like that-an unshak



132      A   Little Less than Gods
able Royalist.... The commander of the fort might be
of the other persuasion. If not and the battleship detected them they must in these light and shifting airs,
run ashore, under the guns of the fort or near it, and
probably under fire from the line of battle ship that sailed
at least six knots to their five.... A position, surely, of
the gravest peril.
Yet there sat Napoleon on a red velvet couch; somnolent after his bottle of wine; his hands crossed over his
stomach, for all the world like a traveller in the innparlour of a sleepy country town, awaiting the London
mail! Chatting with an unknown subaltern!
Wellington would surely have shown more signs of
vigilance, of care, of remorselessness, probably. Obviously, if you thought about it, on the occasion when he,
Feilding, had watched him, Wellington's position had been
as much a case of tip and run as was Napoleon's at that
moment. He had in front of him a considerably greater
force of French; his reserves were exhausted-that came
out in the carefully calculated impatience of his: "Does
he think that I can make troops!" his own left could
hardly hold together and all that he had to tell him that
the enemy's left and centre were being forced back was
some smoke arising amongst distant trees, beyond the
valley.    That, perhaps, could only come from his
guns advancing... But, even at that, woodlands are
not very propitious for artillery!
Well, Wellington had appeared vigilant, snake-like and
cold. No doubt, were he in Napoleon's now position, he
would appear the same. It was a question of the complexion of commanders. No doubt when between and upon




A  Little Less than Gods           I33
the decks Perducet announced to the anxious troops: "HE
comperes, the Emperor is taking a refreshing nap! "-a
suppressed cheer would run among their heads and communicate itself to the rest of the flotilla. They would say:
"There is no danger. The Emperor allows himself to nap.
He has all things prepared. Quel homme!"
That suited his troops who required to repose on the
magnetism of a godhead. On the other hand for Wellington's troops it was necessary that they should feel how
he, watching over Israel, remained ceaselessly at attention. Napoleon, led by his star, had all things prepared
for him; Wellington must be vigilant, to watch the turn
of the moment. The one was a seer, the other incomparably competent!
And their rank and file were as different.
It had been singular and engrossing to the young man
to come against, to be, as it were, buried, under French
troops of all arms. He had been up against them on campaign but there you had seen little of them except an
occasional prisoner, sullen or vainglorious-or a bearskinned line of dark blue advancing, head deep in smoke
-or in groups, once or twice, in amongst the scarlet and
pipe-clay!
But remembering his own men at leisure, recumbent
usually and except when there was badger-baiting or
cocking or a round or two with the maulies-for they
contrived those field sports wherever they wentl-they
came back to him as usually silent and unoccupied. But
between and above these decks there was perpetual movement! Men played cards; they played dice; they recounted their exploits; they discussed politics with violent




134       A  Little Less than Gods
gestures of the wrists and hands; they carved their ration
bones into boats, spoons or camels to send for remembrance to their children; they wrote letters to their
mothers. Older men would get into the corners of guncarriages and read begrimed newspapers, or go over proclamations they had copied out, correcting them. It was
intensely interesting to hear them talk of their past battles
or to mark the clearness of their views of public matters.
There again it was Wellington against the Emperor.
You could no more imagine talking to a British trooper
than you could imagine yourself finding entertainment
from the conversation of the Duke. It was not a case of all
work and no play.    The Duke took his hounds with
him wherever they could be got until he finally left them
at St. Jean de Luz..
Count Bertrand came down the companion. He reported to the Emperor that Fort Antibes appeared to be
garrisoned. By means of a good glass you could perceive
guns and men with bayonets lounging against them. For
Fort Eustache he could not answer. The line of battleship
did not as yet appear to have perceived them. She was
holding on her course which might carry her to Sardinia.
"Then we must make for Frejus," the Emperor said.
"We should make that place by nightfall or soon after."
Count Bertrand answered: "Not before the dawn, Sire.
The wind falls every minute! "
Napoleon said: "Be it so. My star will doubtless influence wind and tide for my good. I we arrived at nightfall we could not land till dawn and t is as well that we
should not have the appearance of hanging off the coast!"




A  Little Less than Gods           I35
He added: "Mon bon Bertrand!" indulgently, and the
Count withdrew.
Napoleon looked across at the boy with a little malice:
"My Lieutenant," he said, "you have no doubt not
had the chance to read the papers of the Delicate Inquiry
into the Conduct of the Princess of Wales, for they were
kept secret. But my agents procured them for me..
He had read them with amazement tempered with envy.
For that a ruler like the Prince Regent could retain his
throne-or his Regency-in whose Court, and in whose
very bed, for the matter of that, such irregularities could
be alleged to have taken place, must be a matter of envy to
all other monarchs who had to maintain moive rigid
decorums in their Courts, their Consorts and themselves!
The Delicate Inquiry, George knew, had been an investigation by- Ministers into the conduct of the Princess
of Wales. But the Inquiry had taken place in secrecy at
the time when he had been a mere child.... But Napoleon knew that the subject of the commission had been
the alleged pregnancy of the Princess by a Captain Mauby
at a time when she had been already separated from her
husband.... And the Emperor was sardonically amused
by the evidence of a maid called, as he remembered it,
Sarah By God. That, he said gloatingly, left no doubt that
the Prince Regent had suborned her and a Sir and Lady
Campbell to falsely allege his own dishonour. Imagine
that! And he animadverted for long as to the Prince's
subsequent cruelty to his daughter, the Princess Charlotte,
in depriving her of the society of her mother.
"My good young man," said he, "it shall not be long




136       A  Little Less than Gods
before of a winter evening entering the Tuileries you may
be witness of a very different spectacle-in my retiring
room before my hearth-fire, myself and my consort come
in after long inspection of the peaceful industries of our
fellow-citizens and friends-for 'subjects' I will not call
them.     Then before the fire, with my son the King
of Rome at my knee, you shall see a domesticity very
different I"




CHAPTER SIX


H E contrived to be in at the death at most of the
happenings to that small cortege whilst it remained small, in the land of grey olives, queer, bare, black
vine stumps, pot-herbs, rocks and sunlight-up into the
foothills of the Alps, that is to say, and as far as Lyons.
Afterwards he regretted-as we all do now and againthat he had kept no diary. He had not even any notes. All
that he kept of that expedition he found in Paris at the
bottom of his valise-a small eagle in bronze that his
servant had procured for him, a brass regimental tab of
the Polish Contingent, and a dry, small twig of olive
wrapped in two copies of Napoleon's proclamations in his
own handwriting. The proclamations differed, one being
addressed to the peasantry, one to the Army...
"Frenchmen!' the one -began, "the defection of the
Duke of Castiigqne delivered up Lyons without defence
to our enemies"; and "Frenchmen! in my exile I heard
your complaints and your wishes. You demand that government of your choice which alone was legitimate...
The other: "Soldiers! We were not conquered: two men
risen from our ranks betrayed our laurels, their country,
their prince, their benefactor." It went on: "Those whom,
during twenty-five years, we have seen traversing all
Europe to raise up enemies against us... shall they
pretend to command and control our eagles?" Or again:
"Tear down those colours from your persons-those
'37




138       A  Little Less than Gods
colours that the nation has proscribed and which for
twenty-five years served as a rallying signal to all the
*       enemies of France; moudt the tricoloured cockade: you
bore it in the days of our greatness! Who shall be master
over us? Who shall have it in his power?"
They read a little lifeless, those phrases, when he found
them in his room in the rue du Bac with the thunder of
the cannon of the Allies, after Waterloo, sullenly shaking the window frames.... But if you could have heard
them falling from his lips in the Gulf of Juan, the lips of
the small man in dark blue, by the intense blue of the
Mediterranean, with the troops in all makes of uniforms,
standing, squatting over tubs or on their hams, beneath
the silver grey of the olives, on the thin carpet of needles
beneath the dark pines, or beneath the bright and
hyacinthine skies-their pencils raised to take down those
thunderbolts of words.... Ah, that would have been
different!
But in the tall, gloomy slice of a room at the bottom of
the rue du Bac with its glimpse of the remorselessly flowing Seine and the grey, dispassionate Tuileries, those petitions had been dim enough. The pencil-writing was already
faded, one of them was rubbed and stained by the olive
twig that it had enwrapped. He had left twig and papers
lying on the flap of his escritoire and there they had lain
when, two days later, the two captains of his regiment,
stiff and formal in their scarlet and pipe-clay and stocks
had come in coldly to arrest him... It was infinitely
strange and disturbing to him to see again his own uniform
and the stiffness of these two men who moved as if they
had been wooden soldiers because of the formality of their




A Little Less than Gods


'39


errand, which was disagreeable to them. And he could
have laughed hysterically to see the unanimity of their
movements once one of them had had scent of those Petitions. They positively ejaculated sounds of astonishment
and each, with immensely long black pantaloons strapped
beneath the boot, long-tailed scarlet coats and great black
shakos decorated with blobs of wool, leaned over the flap
of the escri-toire reading with moving lips. Each had the
tiniest of whiskers-mere prolongations of the hair beside
their ears. One of them said:
"You perceive: it is in his own handwriting!"
The other got no further than to exclaim: "I protest...
One of them supported himself on the flap of the
escritoire with his right hand, holding in his left the sword
he had taken from the young man; the other supported
himself with his left. They had thus an admirable balance.
The one on the left twisted in his fingers the little olive
twig, the boy watching it with anxious eyes.
He was singularly conscious that on the copy of the
proclamation to the French civilian population was the
note: "Copy of the Emperor's Proclamation, made for
distribution by me, George Feilding, Gulf of Juan, March
1st. Duly distributed at Gap on March 5th on the march
to Grenoble." On the other he had pencilled: "Distributed at Grenoble, March 7th."
He commented to himself grimly that there are occasions when it is well not to take notes. This was one of
them! He was under arrest charged with desertion and
having comforted one of his Majesty's enemies, Bonaparte, to wit!




140       A   Little Less than     Gods
He cared very little about that; but he was in despair
because at that moment he should have been meeting
Madame de Frejus at the southern gate of the Little
Luxembourg, in a spot called the Closerie des Lilas where
they could walk unobserved and freely discuss what they
had been discussing... the question of Helene's divorce
from Frejus. His Helene had demanded those three days
for reflection and possibly for confidences with the kind,
tall Princesse de la Moskwa, to whose protection she had
retreated to be out of hearing of her husband's imprecations.
The officer, toying with the olive twig, flipped it across
his comrade's back towards the empty fire-place. At the
start that Feilding made to pick it up, both of them sprang
round, their hands on their sabres. He would rather have
parted with his life than with that twig and he was determined that only with life itself, if then, should it depart
from him. For it was an omen-all the omen of peace that
life seemed to have left him....
An omen! All other days and events of that time he
might perhaps forget, but the occasion of his finding that
little branch he would for ever preserve in his mind.
"And seeing it, I took it in my hand
And said: 'This shall a token stand,
'That in short time my woes shall cease
'And love shall crown my pains with peace!"'... or words to that effect, had been part of an old song
his mother had been used to sing when he was young.
A sad woman, he never knew why, she would, in winter
dusks and other mournful twilights, open her clavier and
the long music books with their faded yellow papers and




A  Little Less than Gods            I41
would sing melancholy, yearning songs that her mother,
and possibly her grandmother, had sung before her....
Such as:
"When with neglect, the lover's bane, poore maids rewarded be,
The only refuge from their pain is but a wreath from thee!"
That however had been to the willow tree, not the
olive.
He could hardly remember more than that of his
mother, a pale, silent woman, who nevertheless at times
could erect herself and pour out upon his always deferential father, vials of contempt and wrath that would have
cowed the son, for life.... He remembered, the last of
them when he had been fourteen or rising fifteen, when, for
a festive season, the house had been full of French
4migres, with Helene whom he was taught to regard as his
cousin and her father the Marquis whom he never regarded as his uncle. George had been making some rough
horseplay of kissing the child under the mistletoe, in which
Helene, as less inured to English habits, had resentfully
opposed him-in the great hall under a bunch of that
parasitic plant as large as a four bushel measure..
The servants had been lighting the sconces amongst the
holly and yew round the great hall, his mother superintending them because she had a great dread of fire and
feared the candles might catch in the dry yew needles.... Helene had come into the dusky hall, a fair
child dressed all in white, to watch the lighting of the
candles. He had pounced upon her and dragged her, resisting and uttering words of fright and reproof, under
the great bunch that had only just been hauled into place.




I42


A Little Less than Gods


In the scuffle his mother's hand had gripped his left
wrist with the strength of mania and he had been dragged
and jerked into an unused still-room that gave onto the
hall-a very large closet that had lockers all round it.
She had whirled him, staggering, into a corner of the
lockers, having ejaculated: "Stay there! Stay therel Son
of your father!" He supposed he could have resisted her,
but she had great strength at any rate for the moment,
and he was afraid. She had paced the place-nine stepsbackwards and forwards till his father came, smiling,
ruddy-skinned, blue-eyed, hawk-nosed, tall and clean-in
his long blue coat with the golden buttons and the long
white trousers with straps, and his iron-grey hair shining.
She had assailed him at once in cold, virulent, broken
French. His father knew French apparently to perfection,
but the boy knew nothing but oaths and ejaculations he
had picked up from marquises and viscounts. So he had
gathered nothing of what they had said. His father had
obviously expressed some concern at first until at the word
"mistletoe" he had laughed and said:
"Oh, gui, gui!... The French for mistletoe is gui,"
and he added, "That, my dear, puts an entirely different
construction on it!" His mother had broken down into
English. She had said that if the whole swarm were not
sent packing that evening she would straightway walk out
of the house.
His father had said: "My dear, you can have the coach
and six. But what good would that do? I cannot expel the
best blood in Europe....
She had burst in with denunciations... of the best
blood in Europe! She had said that the Marquis de




A  Little Less than Gods           143
Dinart-Perigord would sell his-something that the boy
could not understand-for a twenty-pound note; his
nephews the Marquis and Viscount de Clermont-St. CyrBrion made their livings by the sale of loaded dice; the
Comte de Fronsac-Leoville by the manufacture of clothes
pegs, Monsieur de Beau-jeu by teaching the Jesuit botte
and other foul strokes with the duelling sword.... She
recited these things with vehemence, but with calculation.
It was difficult to reconcile her with the silent lady who
in twilight dusks sang mournful love songs. But at the
time of his mother's funeral, which had taken place before
lambing-time that same winter or early spring, the boy
had gathered from the servants that his mother had been
consumed by a cold flame of passion-a bachendiaoulillion, said the servants who in that border county often
spoke a bastard Welsh-for his father. But the Squire
had been "gay."
"Gay" was not the word George would have applied
to his father, who was nevertheless bright-haired, equable,
extremely cynical and indeed frightening. He spoke with
extreme clearness, every second or third sentence containing a quotation from Tully, Quintus Horatius Flaccus
or Dares and Dictys. He was also an incomparable performer of the violin in his private rooms and he had an
insupportable contempt for fools, whether born or
not.... Squire Feilding was in short no Squire Western,
bawling drunk about his acres after the hounds. He had
sojourned much abroad and carried his liquor with a
stern gravity; after the third bottle his speech would
usually be as slow and distinct-and wounding-as when
he was stone sober. It took him in the legs, of course, but




I44


A Little Less than Gods


he would sit erect at the head of his board, even snuffing
the candles in a nearby branch with accuracy, till all his
guests, their neckties loosened, were safely under the
table. Then Camp would conduct him safely to bed.
No, he was no Squire Western. He kept his hounds, of
course, with a cold efficiency rather than with enthusiasm,
but Nimrod himself had admired his casting; and his viewhalloas and gone-aways, which sounded singularly low
and unconcerned when you were near him, penetrated
nevertheless to the furthest corners of the pack and the
field, with a bell-like ululation. The cry of wolves on moonlight nights which he had heard in the Pyrenees had often
sounded to the boy like the voice of his father encouraging
his hounds....
They had sent him for that holiday season to his
uncle, whose estate was next to that of no less a person
than Jack Mitton himself. In spite of that he had at first
felt aggrieved at being deprived of the society of Helene
de Dinart whom he. had just begun to find a comrade of
some spirit in field exploits-at least after the hounds or
up a tree.
He had indeed, from his uncle's, written her a letter
in which he had intended to express a sort of clumsy devotion, but it had taken him three days to write and in the
two days intervening before his fair copy Mr. Mitton next
door had performed two of his most famous feats: he had
jumped his hunter, in and out, over two chaises containing
elderly couples on the turnpike, from the roadside sward,
and he had gone duck-shooting in the buff over the Christmas ice. In the buff-stark naked-he had stalked duck




A   Little Less than Gods           145
by moonlight on the ice and had brought back three
couples.
So George Feilding had seen his first demi-god-and
his first letter to his Helene had ended up by being one
long panegyric of that hero. There was about that something symbolic. He remembered to have concluded his
letter: "Is not this a man in whose service one could lay
down one's life and more!"
The olive branch, however, he had found in an olivefield between the ruined amphitheatre of Frejus and the
shore of Golfe Juan, whilst the Emperor sat on a great
olive bole and ruminated somnolently. It was five o'clock
of the evening and the dusk already falling. The small
town of Frejus into which the young man had walked, had
seemed completely empty. Windows covered with violets,
doors sealed up, no smoke issuing from the chimneys of
such hovels as had them.... In effect the rumour had
spread from Antibes that Algerine marauders had landed
on the coast and all the inhabitants had fled to the mountains or to Cannes to give the news. And Napoleon sat
there irresolute. So sadly indeed had the young Feilding
walked within the field.... His mother's song had commenced with the words:
"Sadly I walked within the field to see what comfort it might
yield,
And, as I went my weary way an olive branch before me
lay...."
And there indeed had lain the olive branch. Inexplicably!
It had seemed inexplicable to this boy used to the ob



146


A Little Less than Gods


servation of trees and their boughs because the leaves
upon it were quite fresh, and the cicatrice where the
branch had been torn away from the great parent tree
fresh too. He was accustomed enough to fields of olives
to know that after great winds it is not unusual to find
twigs torn from the grey-green whispering trees and lying
on the ground. Indeed, on the sparse herbage of the clayey
soil lay many such little twigs, dry whisps. But there had
been no storms for a month past and of the light winds of
the last fortnight they had had sufficient evidence in the
slowness of their voyage.... But this branch had its
leaves fresh....
No doubt it had been torn from its trunk by one of the
mounted officers-a Pole as likely as not-whom Napoleon had sent to reconnoitre the country for six miles
round. No doubt an olive branch, whipping in the dawn
into the face of a mounted officer, might incite him to
grasp it and the onward walk of the horse would tear it
out. But that boy whose extreme dejection had already set
him humming his mother's song, had insisted in seeing an
omen in the appearance... an omen that in short time
his woes would cease and love submerge his dejection in
tranquillities..
For he was indeed dejected.
His day he had begun actively enough to keep thoughts
of his Helene out of his head, splashing ashore before
dawn from the 'Inconstant's pinnace, which followed
closely the longboat containing the Emperor and his
marshals. The smaller vessels had been just beached, the
troops springing from the bulwarks like heavy drops from
fountains.




A Little Less than Gods


147


The young man had awaited a great outburst of eloquence when his foot touched the soil of his realm. But
when Napoleon had come up the sand with a rolling
motion and stood on hard soil, he gave two kicks with his
right leg and two with his left, to unlimber his feet, and
remarked to Count Bertrand:
"So there is an end of the Congress of ViennaI" Then
he had begun to hasten the departure of a detail that was
going to take possession of the Forts of St. Eustache and
Antibes. They were twenty-five men under the orders of
an elderly and sagacious lieutenant of infantry-each man
picked by the Emperor himself as being physically impressive but not very sound, yet with enthusiasm, loyalty
and powers of persuasion as great as could be. In addition they were tricked out in the best that the Force had
to show in the way of appurtenances. If another man had
a better bearskin than one of that detail he must make it
over and the same with packs, muskets, bandoliers and
boots. The Emperor had spent the last daylight hours on
board the Inconstant in making over that small force....
And he was at it again himself with a lanthorn, examining
each man before the dawn.
That, in effect, was Napoleon, as the young man saw
him. His mind was always on the minds of his enemies;
his eyes always open for details of the smallest. With his
mind's eye there, he saw only a great table with all his
enemies from Wellington to Metternich and the obtuse
kings and semi-imbecile emperors seated around it: and
he saw them springing apart as if at the falling of a
grenade in their midst-their expressions of rage, horror,
terror, consternation or of lugubrious and grotesque




148      A   Little Less than Gods
spleen. But his acting mind was equally set on his next
step-which was the taking of the fort and port of Antibes.
For that, the men he sent and at whose coming he believed that the garrison would desert to his colours, must
present an aspect of soldierly exactitude and trimness of
uniform, not because of any vanity, but because they were
to be taken as samples of his army. More than twentyfive he could not send because he could not spare them
from his small force..... When he landed he had 700
men of his Old Guard, 300 Elbans and Corsicans and 140
Poles.
So the Emperor by lanthorn-light went amongst those
men, adjusting a bearskin here, tightening a pack strap
there, pinching now and then an ear or whispering an
injunction to some old, grizzled man. For all the world he
might again have been their Little Corporal.
His final injunction to the old captain in command
the boy did not hear. He was engaged in frantically making his servant saddle and caparison one of the six horses
that they had brought with them. But from that adventure
nothing but mortification had resulted. The small detail
had thundered on the gates of the fortress in the early
light, but instead of the gates being opened and a fraternization taking place between the veterans of the Detail
and such veterans of Napoleon's as should be within, the
gates had remained forbiddingly closed whilst the guard
sent to apprise the governor.
Ordinarily the gates should have been opened at that
hour, and the manoeuvre might have succeeded. But the
lights and noises of the disembarkation had sent flying
through all the department that rumour of the coming of




A  Little Less than Gods           149
North African pirates. So, upon hearing the errand of the
Detail, the sergeant of the guard sent to warn the comb
mander of the garrison-one General Gordin or Gorsin:
the young Feilding could not exactly remember the name.
There at last came the sound of the footsteps of many
men from beyond the barrier and low cries of command,
and already the Captain commanding the detail began to
be aware of what was coming and warned the young Feilding to take himself and his horse to a greater distance,
for the horse, being one of only six, was of great value to
the Emperor. Thus, when two lines of infantry came running from the gates that were cast suddenly open, the
young man was at sixty yards or so of distance. He saw
the infantry disarm the Emperor's men without so much
as a word spoken, for there must have been two hundred
of the Royalist troops and their officers held pistols to
the heads of such as spoke.
That General Gorsin was what the Scots called a cannie
man and the young Feilding had nothing but mortification
from an interview that he then had with him. For the light
coming up upon the towers and spires of the little town,
the Detail, now unarmed and surrounded by the garrison
troops wearing their white cockades, had marched within
the gates; and the gates being nearly closed the general
appeared within the aperture and asked the young man
who he was. The boy answered that he was an officer of
His Britannic Majesty's Monmouthshire cavalry.
"That I perceive," the general answered dryly, "I have
fought against squadrons of yours," and he asked the
young man his errand, and whether he were on service.
The young man answered that he was not upon service




150       A  Little Less than Gods
but was there to observe the methods and steps taken in
the recovery of his lawful throne by the Emperor.
whose cockade you yourself once wore! " the boy
added hotly, for his heart was sore at the sight of those
men of his Demi-God's, disarmed and led away. Moreover
he was possessed by the idea that by the use of his single
tongue he might turn this victory into a defeat for the
Royalists.
"Those are strange words from one of your cloth to
one of mine," the general said, and, glancing upwards, the
young man perceived that from each 6f the four embrasures that immediately confronted him there pointed
at his heart the shining, ring-like muzzles of four muskets
apiece.
His skin prickled all over and rage suddenly sent the
blood to his head.
"That is all one with your conduct," he shouted, "Monsieur le General, to train muskets upon the officer of a
friendly power, as to turn your coat. One like the other is
an act unbecoming..." and, leaning his right hand over,
he lightly tapped the hilt of his sabre.
"Why, there are more ways of killing a dog than one,"
the general said. "I should be loath to bring diplomatic
troubles upon my sovereign by shooting an Allied officer;
but, believe me, I shall shoot you like a dog if you continue to bawl treason to my sovereign —and to yours!at my gates. For myself, my conscience is clear. I kept
my oath to my Emperor whilst he remained with us: when
he abandoned us I took to my king and to France an oath
that I shall keep. For you, I counsel you to come within
these walls and abandon the crackbrain enterprise of this




A Little Less than Gods


"5'


mock Emperor. You are a young, inexperienced man. I
do not know what motives account for your presence here
but for one of your profession you seem to me to be in
very parlous company."
"General," the boy said, "I would rather die than
come within your walls."
The General retreated within the opening of the gates.
"Then," he said, "there is no more to be said. This
country is as free to you as to me. Only I warn you that if
you try to shout treason to my men upon the walls they
will shoot you at the first word." And he disappeared
within the gates that swung irresistibly and heavily to.
At the sight a certain panic descended on the boy. He
was aware that the words he had uttered might well seem
treasonable. And treasonable enough they seemed afterwards at the Court Martial when, with his sabre on the
table before him and the dry, formal officers behind it, he
had to listen to General Gorsin's remarkably accurate
and dispassionate repetition of this conversation. It proved
damning.
For he had had no time even so much as to allege that
he was a prisoner on parole to the Emperor, nor indeed
had he had any opportunity at all of pointing out that
he considered his country to be at peace with France
and the Emperor. He had merely talked treason to
Louis XVIII.
So there he sat his horse with twelve muskets pointing
at his heart-uniformed, booted, spurred, sabred and all.
In his rage he could hardly restrain himself from shouting to the soldiers above exhortations to cast away their
white cockades and mount the tricolour. They might fire




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A Little Less than Gods


at him and, though he was confident that he could so
manage his horse as to escape their bullets, still they were
fairly certain to hit the horse itself-and it was Count
Bertrand's own Arab mare, and horses were precious to
the expedition. One has besides an instinctive shrinking
from exposing a blood mare to almost certain laceration
by bullets. So, although he had still the strongest possible
inclination to take that fort single-handed, he rode away
at last through the pine forests.
Thus he himself was the bearer of that bad news to the
Emperor, and there could be little doubt as to the perturbation it caused in the Imperial entourage. The Emperor
himself burst into a rage, stamping his feet and asking
who was this General Gordin or Gorsin, and said little
more. But from the perturbed faces of Bertrand and the
others it was obvious that the blow was a severe one. They
had undoubtedly counted on having the port and fortress
of Antibes as a base. And with some reason, for of the
four hundred veterans that Napoleon had sent from his
Elba army into France to prepare the way-the three that
had been sent to Antibes had reported the garrison as
being perfectly ready-when the Violet reappeared-to
cast away their Royalist emblems, and the townspeople,
owing to the gloomy pride and arrogance of the Marquis
who ruled them in the king's name, as yearning to reexchange the lilies of the Bourbons for the bees of the
Emperor.
All this had been foiled by the dogged coolness of that
General Gorsin. And so important did the possession of
that place seem to them that they debated whether they
should not take the little fort of St. Eustache which had




A  Little Less than Gods           153
been found after all to be dismantled. There they might
have mounted the guns that they had and so establish some
sort of base.
But they decided to see if they could not, by means of
another expedition, reduce the town by fair words. For it
was essential that no French blood should be shed at this
stage or at any other of the expedition. But a scout that
they sent with this second detail with orders to watch
from the fringes of the wood, came back with the news
that the second unit had fared even as the first. And then
they sent an officer alone who had been a bosom friend of
General Gorsin's and might be counted on to show him the
light of reason. But that officer-, of artillery- never came
back either.
Of these disasters the troops knew nothing; for them
the details were just details like others. They were told
to rest themselves for a long night march, and they
bivouacked very contentedly, sprawling-across a vineyard and an olive orchard-contentedly enough round
their soup-cauldrons and drinking their wine of which
half a bottle had been served to each man. They were unconcerned. They would march if the service demanded it,
but they would rather sprawl on the ground; the rest was
in the hands of Corporal Violet.
But upon the boy great dejection had settled. It seemed
to him impossible that the Emperor and his staff could
have no alternative plan, yet they seemed to have none.
The Colonel-Count dei Gatti di Vivario, now with his
sword-hand restored to use, exclaimed, spitting with fury,
that certain of the officers were in favour of defiling the
graves of their mothers by counselling a return to Elba.




I54


A Little Less than Gods


He was by now again truculently and cheerfully friendly
with the boy, but his news brought George Feilding no
great cheer; and for the whole afternoon the Emperor
sat apart on his olive bole, his arms crossed, his head
bent so that his face was hidden by his great hat.
So that the boy saw his first great adventure gone all
to ruin; his chief demi-god cast down, himself no doubt
disgraced.... And what would his Helene do then? He
imagined her jeering at him for his folly; regarding him as
a cock with his crest cut-and no game-cock at that. And
he imagined her exposed to horrible perils in case, the
enterprise failing, the vengeful Allies should besiege Elba
and root out Napoleon and his court.
So he desired with all the strength of his being to regard
the olive branch as an omen torn by the god from its
parent trunk and cast before his feet in the stillness of
evening. And indeed it seemed so. For no sooner did he
take a twig of the branch in his hand than bugles began
to blow the fall in and the Emperor was on his feet watching his men dressing in line amongst the dry, small trunks
of the vines.
He delivered a tremendous oration. The eagles were
about to set themselves in motion. At midnight they
would precipitate themselves into that France whose arms
were stretched out to them.
In the pale sky of the north-west hung Venus beside
the moon, wavering and welling out. He pointed to it his
right hand that had a ghostly pallor against the background of the darkening olive foliage.
"Fellow soldiers and comrades in glory!" he exclaimed.
"Behold my star shines over Paris!"




A  Little Less than Gods            I55
There was never such cheering before on the shores of
Cap Juan as then arose.
"You never can tell," Gatti di Vivario grumbled afterwards between his teeth. "I wonder whether he kept us
kicking our heels until a plan had occurred to him. Or
whether all that was planned from far back. You never
can tell with our man. All that you can tell is that he is
always right and as fortunate as if he directed the planets
in their courses. If he has a need for a star, a star will be
there in his service."
Cries of "To Paris! " continued till far into the night.
For whenever two or three of the troops came together
on their errands they would set it up. It was splendid
again to see bivouac fires upon the trunks of trees.




CHAPTER SEVEN


S O there, slowly, on a pensive horse at the head of a
column, in the starlight, he had his desire. He was
on a hard, smooth road-the creation of Napoleon; beneath the branches of plane trees, the plantings of Napoleon; marching through Napoleon's land, with the dust
raised by the advance of Napoleon's long column shot
through with the dust of light from the great planets that
shone through the plane-branches.... The stars in their
courses! Surely they fought for Napoleon... and in a
way for George Feilding, who now had peace in his heart.
Or that, maybe, was caused by the olive branch..
Some special providence had provided for him that magic
night beneath the splendour of the Milky Way, the blackpurple of the serrated little olive hills on the right, on the
left the sense of the quietly lapping Mediterranean. They
were to go from triumph to triumph and love should
crown his pains with peace. Surely nothing could be
denied to one who had ridden in that chevauchee!
It had been one in the morning before they were on the
hard road, though the head of the expedition had started
at midnight; but the guns delayed them. They were
hauled to the roadside by the sailors and fishermen of the
flotilla. The artillerymen would have done it better, but
the Emperor would not have them fatigued at the outi56




A  Little Less than Gods           I57
set of the day, for if the column were set upon, the artillerymen would need all their agility to serve those
pieces. So the clumsy monsters at the end of long ropes
floundered in the sand of the vineyards, waddled up over
and down banks and at last came to the road. They had
found one or two mules in stables in the deserted township, but not enough for the guns, so they were used
for hauling the ammunition and treasure chests and the
sutler's wagon and the like.
So, with a little rumbling, but not so much, they proceeded as if in a reverie between the hills and the sea. It
was noticeable that whilst the night lasted the other ranks,
if they spoke at all, neither jested nor laughed and the
officers talked in low tones as if they went in awe of the
spirit of the country which they were invading. They
were set a very leisurely pace and they halted and fell
out very often, lying by the roadside, those that were
mounted descending to ease their horses, and the Emperor walking along the lines of reclining men and conversing with them about their personal affairs-where
they had left their wives and children and how much
money they would need to live at home in their own pays
now that they were bringing peace to the world. The reason for this leisurely progress was that in the first place
the men, who had of necessity done -little route marching in the tiny island, should come gradually into it; and
then there would have been no sense in arriving at Cannes
before the morning was a little advanced. A triumph seen
from a bedroom lattice loses half its lustre. The inhabitants must be awake and abroad.
It happened that in falling out some of the men came




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A Little Less than Gods


upon a fellow asleep by the roadside who must have been
middling drunk when he fell asleep since he was still too
muddled to speak much when they shook him awake.
At first he was frightened of having fallen into the hands
of corsairs, but he soon came to and in a boastful mood
exclaimed:
"You are no corsairs. I maintained to Nicholas and
Jerome and the gravedigger that I would eat all the corsairs I found upon this road." That was the first man
they had seen since they landed and it was the first inkling
they had had that they had been taken for Algerines. He
spoke at first to the Emperor himself with great boastfulness about what he had said to Jerome and Nicholas and
the rest; but when a lanthorn was brought and the light
fell on the great hat, the mantle with collar carelessly
turned up, and, when that fell back, upon the white intent face, he stiffened very slowly, standing petrified for
a long while, and then cried out:
"The Little Corporal! Death of my life, the Little Corporal!" It became visible that he had only one arm. He
had lost the other as far back as the taking of Toulon,
when Napoleon had commanded the siege guns and had
been only Bonaparte. The Emperor talked with him for
a long time, but in low tones and in the barbarous patois
of Nice so that George Feilding could neither hear nor
make anything out of what they said. And at last the
fellow darted from the road and ran halloing up a path
through the vines that only he could see-and from the
serrations of the little hills for a long time they could
hear him bawling:
"Ohe, Nicolas; ohe, le fossoyeur; ohe, M. le Curel"




A  Little Less than Gods           I59
and continuing that the Emperor was come back with a
hundred thousand troops and the good times were returned.
In the light of the lanthorn that was now on the ground
the white hands of the Emperor were seen to rub themselves together. He called out briskly to Count Bertrand
to fall in the troops and that they must have music, and
it all became a great bustle, the bandsmen unshipping
their instruments, the drummers tuning against the damp
of the coming dawn, for the sky behind them was already
white. A little advance guard of the tallest grenadiers was
detailed to precede the Emperor. Then came Napoleon
a-slouch on his grey charger with Bertrand on his right
and Drouet on his left, both erect silhouettes on bay
horses, looking black against the light, and a mounted
bugler and, at an interval, Gatti di Vivario, being Quartermaster-General, and the young Feilding in his scarlet
amongst the dark blue.
To the startling reverberation of drums, shafts of light
flew across olives and vines from the hill-peaks of the dun
and stony country: they had nearly a dozen little drummer boys; the fifes laughed and neighed, all the horses
curvetting a little and moving sideways except the Emperor's. The light grew: what looked like tree stumps
amongst the vines appeared as early peasants, petrified,
watching with the dung-forks laden with dung and suspended. They had near two hundred cavalry, dismounted,
but a dozen had their shining bugles with the embroidered
bugle-cloths depending and the small details of the hilltops became visible to the sound of their long, mournful, silver preludes. But it was to the sound of the




i6o       A  Little Less than Gods
Marseillaise that the red sun came up behind them. The
peasants and children came running down towards the
road, leaping boulders, their arms in the air, springing
across irrigation streams: innumerable children!
The drums againy the Imperial March, the drums,
Partant pour la Syrie, the drums, artillery bugles from
far down the column, the Marseillaise: a period of silent
marching, but brisk, the cadenced rustling of innumerable feet. Children were running along beside Napoleon:
for the first time in little trebles the cry of Vive l'Empereur
sounded again across French vineyards. There was a boy
with a flaxen poll and flashing teeth and eyes ran all
the way level with his returned sovereign, to the first
rush-thatched hovels of Cannes.
The bugler halted his horse; when the young Feilding
came up to him he was bidden to ride for some paces
beside the Emperor. His horse caracoled beside the Emperor's grey, which had a very slow pace in appearance
so that it seemed like the oncoming of destiny, though
indeed it exactly synchronized with infantry marching at
the quickstep to the fife. Napoleon rode with his head
down, forward upon his chest. You would have said he
was a stricken man riding from a disastrous field, his
grey overcoat covering his horse to the tail-strap. Upon
his martingale was a plaque of gold that was embossed to
show an eagle. He rode in silence for a long time, but his
eyes glanced from right to left at the peasants running
down the hills.
They came to the road-end of an avenue of palms and
figs -that ran up to a long white mas in the dark green
pines backing on a red hillside. An old man on crutches,




A Little Less than Gods


i6i


a dozen children, a half a dozen raven-haired young
women were at the roadside there. There were squares of
extravagant green herbage, squares of extravagantly red
earth, squares of vines with their minute tortured trunks
beginning to show feathers of green. And all this profusion
ran, in planted terraces whose grey-stone supporting
walls were gay with foxgloves, valerian, green ferns or
veiled with the pink sprays of almond blossoms-so that
it was a joy.
- Napoleon checked his horse at a point where you could
see right up the avenue, and the bugler sounded the halt.
"This," he said suddenly to the young man, "is a
domain of the Prince of the Moskwa. I gave him those
date palms from amongst my own that I brought from
Egypt. Yet he was the first to betray me." He let the
reins fall on his horse's neck and dived with both hands
deep into the pockets of his coat. "He was nevertheless
the bravest man I have ever known. You have heard of
Ney I "
As if it had not been wonder enough a new awe came
upon the young man as he gazed at the white house with
the grey, closed shutters on all the windows. It was incredible that one should see the very house of Ney!
A faint whimper of sound began from the young
women; they took handfuls of children by the shoulder.
A thin voice piped: "Long... live... the Emperor I"
All their voices cried it. From the left of the road where
it was marshier and last year's papyrus reeds made
screens, it came in the bass of men's voices; heavy men
with great hats, pushing aside the reeds, emerged with, on
their shoulders, the great tools with which they laboured




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A Little Less than Gods


the heavy earth. They cast their hats in the air as they
ran awkwardly.
"You are astonished that they cry 'Long live the
Tyrant,"' he said darklingly to the young man. "I will
tell you!" He waved a hand to include all that fertility
to the hilltops. "It is because when I first rode along this
way all this was a desert.... It was I who planted
those fig trees, it was I who planted those vines; it was
I who gave prosperity to all this region and to all France
I, Boney! I, the Corsican ogre.... You say that
man is a benefactor to humanity who will make two
blades of wheat grow where one grew before.... But I,
where none were, made a million million to grow..
Would that your Pitt had been such another ogre!"
He began to throw small silver coins to the children
to right and left of the road-with some profusion, scooping handfuls from either pocket; and a gold napoleon or
two to the old man on crutches and a couple of old
women in black.
"You will observe," he said with a grim humour, for
he was still disturbed by the remembrance of Pitt, "they
cheered before I threw them money, I am not one to
throw much money to the populace, but to children I
do it because they remind me of my son whom I soon
shall see!"
There were children everywhere, marching by the roadside, holding their fists before their lips and tooting in
imitation of buglers, or twining round the legs of the
grenadiers who were standing easy. Some entreated to be
allowed to carry the soldiers' packs; boys staggered under
the weight of muskets that the men surrendered to them.




A Little Less than Gods


i63


"It is, you perceive, a very warlike scene," Napoleon
said. "You may observe how these people tremble before
the tyrant!"
He made a motion with his hand and the bugler called
the troops to attention; the click of the bayoneted muskets coming to the shoulder made a rustling run down
the line like wind in ears of wheat.
"You may fall back when the march begins again,"
the Emperor said. "There is, I am informed very credibly,
a considerable settlement of your countrymen in the
town we are approaching. If they saw you at my side
they would conclude that I was your prisoner and the
report would spread through the country!" He added:
"You will find if you talk to them that some are very
much my friends. As I have told you!" He added again:
"And no rabble neither. Philosophers of the wealthier
sort who have learned of Diderot, Rousseau and the rest."
At the renewal of the Marseillaise the young man fell
back beside Gatti di Vivario, who was rolling his eyes in
an ecstasy of admiration, his horse prancing to the music.
"What a man!" he exclaimed. "Ma che' uomo! There
is nothing of which he will not think!"
It was the playing of the Marseillaise that so excited
his admiration.
For nothing could have done more to excite the enthusiasm and calm the fears of the countryside thereabouts. It was indeed a message saying that good times
had come again.
In the old days Napoleon had not so loved that melody;
now, under the Bourbons, when it was not only in disfavour but suppressed, it would at least bring balm to




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A Little Less than Gods


the ears of a countryside that knew it as a strain of liberation from Italians, Austrians, Papists-who knew whom!
-and so he availed himself of it. His music had been
one long message, winding up the valleys in the little hills.
The Marseillaise said liberty had come again; the Imperial March said that Napoleon was there; Partant pour
la Syrie, that the Emperor was on the march to spread
freedom through France to the world.
"For myself," Gatti di Vivario said, "I am not so in
love with freedom that I could not dispense with it. But
as a message it is admirable. There is no detail that that
man omits to attend to. It is that that gives security to
troops and it is that that is the secret of our man's genius.
What is there that he does not know? He will talk to
you with equal infallibility of medicine, of books, of the
opera, of philosophy, of agriculture.... I have heard
him during the peace of Amiens talk of turnips to an English landowner and tell the landowner more of them than
the landowner himself knew. Yet it is the English who
most notably cultivate that root. There was a philosophic
traveller called Yong, Jung... I forget the name..."
"You will not tell me," the young man said, "that it
- was by 'talkingabout carrots that the Emperor won the
battle of BorodinO&"
"That I would not be too sure of!" the Colonel-Count
exclaimed vivaciously, "though I talked of turnips.."
He said that by talking about turnips-by enjoining the
culture of those roots-Napoleon had notably increased
both the number and the girth of the cattle of France:
so they had meat and troops well fed in infancy to supply
cannon-food for their campaigns. Nay, more, the further




A Little Less than Gods


i65


throughout the world you spread the culture of the turnip
-into Germany, into Austria, into Russia herself-the
more fields of well-fed cattle you found to plunder when
you went campaigning.
"Why," he concluded, "had Russia enjoyed for twentyfive years, like France, the rule of our little man, we
should never have been driven out of Moscow by starvation!"
"It takes," the young man said, "surely more than that
to make a demi-god! "
"No, mon lieutenant," the Colonel-Count said; "to
make a god you must have omniscience and care in details. To make a half-god you may make do with halfomniscience, but your care in details you can never do
without. I have seen Napoleon more incensed before
Marengo because there was a lack of onions and potherbs
for a stew for his Old Guard than over the biggest failure of one of his generals in the thick of a contest...
and with reason, for the fault of a general you may
remedy but you will win no battles when your men think
themselves uncared for. If you care for their potherbs,
they think the more by that token that you will care for
their lives in the extreme hazard of combat."
"But generalship, the qualities of the hero," the boy
said; "valour..
"Why, there are generals that have more of generalship than he," the other replied. "If you go by the rules
of strategy and tactics Moreau was ten times the general
that he is, yet very little was done upon the Rhine until
the First Consul took things in hand. And if you elect
for valour, why, he has enough. You have heard of him




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A Little Less than Gods


at ToulonI I saw him there. Valour enough and too
much....
He paused and then went on again:
"No, my young soldier. For generalship, for the com.
pounding beforehand of the ingredients of attack or retreat by rule, there have been commanders more correct... But, for the sense of a battle once it was engaged, and for the sense of nations and principalities
before wars were joined.... He felt his battles as you
feel the fingers of your hand.... You have told me of
your Duke upon a hill seeing by smoke that Picton-or
maybe not Picton-the guns at any rate were advanced
into a new position. But I have seen Napoleon sit in the
bottom of a valley with his back to a tree-trunk conversing with a farmer's wench who had brought him
water. And he would say: 'Junot is there, or there. The
guns are now across the river.' Because he felt it in his
blood or if you-will because his star whispered to him.
He alone could sit in a valley and have the sight of an
eagle planing above the clouds.... And as with units
of his forces so with the nations."
Napoleon, the Corsican went rapturously on, could sit
in the bottom of the Tuileries and say: "Now Pitt is
meditating the declaration of war. Now the Emperor
Alexander plots treason against me. Now Prussia stirs
in conspiracies. Now Metternich's itching palm is stretching towards the gold of England." Or he could predict
when the courage of Austria would fail, Prussia sue for
peace or the Russian forces weary of fighting. He could
feel it by his inner sense because he had within him the
making of all men. A god is a god whether he be Jesus




A Little Less than Gods


i67


or Beelzebub-or the little Corsican-because he participates in the nature of all mankind.
The boy said that he had not thought Napoleon's
Quartermaster-General had been such a philosopher.
"Why," the Corsican answered, "when I was a boy
and Napoleon little more, though to be sure he had then
already left the town, Warenovius the Encyclopaedist
made a long sojourn in Corte, being out of favour with his
government. And since I carried his letters and bargained
for his cabbages or fish for him in the market he spoke
to me often on matters of policy and the nature of mankind and the godhead, and he would read Voltaire and
Fontenelle aloud whilst I plucked and trussed the fowls
for his dinner and afterwards dictate his own works to me.
So I was made acquainted, Quartermaster of the Forces
as you see me now, in some way with the indulgences or
malignancies of the Fates and with the folly of men."
He checked his horse, which had stepped by a neck
ahead of the young man's.
"And surely it is a folly of men to seek to measure
Napoleon with the inches of generalship, valour and
the rest. As well seek to delimit the ocean's tides with
a tape-measure.... Generalship! Valour!" He made
with his right hand the gesture of rubbing a husk between his finger and thumb and casting it to the wind.
The boy would not interrupt him, listening indeed with
bated breath, for the Colonel-Count had the reputation
of having lived all his life alongside one demi-god or aaother, and it was very seldom that he opened his lips.
He passed for being an embittered man as being a Corsican and yet having risen no higher. But an uncontrol



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A Little Less than Gods


lable temper that at times overcan e him had hindered his
career. He began again:
"Generalship! Valour! They are cheap things..
It is necessary to have Fortune beside you in addition;
but, if you elect to talk of valour, why he has enough, our
man. You have heard of him at Toulon. As I said, I saw
him there. Valour enough and too much.... I saw him
watch an immense round English shell twisting and
fizzling at his feet with the contempt of an eagle for a
worm..'.. Valour!... He has belief in his star....
What is it but cold valour that he shows now, marching
at a snail's pace before us for any Jacobin patriot or
discontented soldier to shoot him from behind a tree?
And there are those in this countryside! Why, you shall
see him show valour enough! He is to go through a territory between here and Grenoble and the foothills of
the Alps and so on to Lyons the proud. Well, when last
he passed that way, going to Elba, whole populaces ran
upon his carriage to tear him limb from limb where he
sat unarmed." He stirred impatiently in his saddle and
began again:
"Valour... that is for the mob. I have valour.
Junot had it, Massena, Marmont. Junot the madman
perhaps above most.....
"And the Prince of the Moskwa....
"Oh, Ney. Oh, Neyl" the other answered. "That is
another story... From Toulon I went into the Fourth
Horse and was with him all through the campaign of the
Rhine.... Oh, Ney was incomparable. Spotless! A
paladin... but a simple soul.... Simple! Simple
If he saw the colour red opposed to him he would charge




A Little Less than Gods


i69


it like a bull though it was Satan and all his legions that
incarnadined the sky.... And mind you there are worse
tactics than that of the sword in hand of that farrier's son.
The son of a farrier-in Alsace. And a good son. I have
known him when we were in the Fourth Horse togetheraye, and afterwards-ride fifty miles to carry a dozen of
eggs in winter to his father, eggs being scarce.... And
sit obedient to him: I have seen that too, when he was
a brigadier-general and I maitre d'armes."
"But that," the boy asked, "does that suffice to make
him a man of whom the whole world talks? For indeed
if the whole world talks of the Emperor, part of them do
so with abhorrence. But, though some say that Ney, like
other Marshals of France, was cruel in warfare, there is
no one that does not wonder at the Prince of the Moskwa
as the bravest man in the world and the finest swordsman."
"Why," Gatti di Vivario said, "he is not so fine a
swordsman as I. I have held him at bay by the quarter
hour together and he could not touch me. But it is that
same simplicity of mind as makes him obedient to his
father that renders him invincible and adored.... You
stood up to me once for five minutes and did more; but
my mind was on other things. But if you had that Marshal charging down on you with his sword on high and
his immense charger a-foam, your first impulse would be
to fly, and even if you did not there would be half the
fight lost and you would be dead before you knew it.
Because his mind can never be upon more than one thing
at once.    A simple soul," and the Corsican went on
musingly to enumerate the qualities of Ney.




170


A Little Less than Gods


The long white mas they had lately passed was at once
a symbol and a product of Ney. Napoleon had granted
the estate to his Marshal because Ney was of such little
avarice and of such translucent honesty that he was a
relatively poor man amongst the Marshals. Ney had
brought it to its pitch of fertility because he was a simple
peasant as intent on the fruits of the earth when he was
intent on them as on a cavalry charge when that was his
business. To see him in his simple chateau near Paris
walking in the gardens with Madame la Marechale was
to see Philemon and Baucis cultivating their plot. If you
should suggest to him that he should be unfaithful to
Madame Ney his round eyes would open in wonder and
he would ask why you should pursue another woman
when you were blessed with complete contentment. And
the moment he had a moment's leave, off he was down
there to his wife and his chateau and his children and
his pigs.
He had been a very simple rough fellow even when
he was a general but, once he learned that he had nearly
lost Madame Ney by his uncouthness, he had ever since
paid as much attention to his uniforms as any cornet of
horse for the first time on parade. His generalship was
the same. He was a goodish general and knew for instance
that if you charge suddenly into the flank of troops
marching along a road they will break and their communications be cut, or how to use artillery against horsemen. But what he knew he had learned copybook fashion,
his brows knotted and his tongue rolling in his cheek.
In the midst of battles he would suddenly say: "Ha, we
have them on the flank! "-the idea having come suddenly




A Little Less than Gods


'7'


home to him.... But he was a great commander-the
greatest!-of units of whatever size, because he was
adored by his men and what they had to do he would
make them do.
"Why," the Colonel-Count concluded, "though I do not
love the Allemanic Alsatians and their monotonous greenery and pine forests, and though I love Corsica with its
machia and aridities, and though I should love all Corsicans I would lay down my life as lief for Ney as for the
Emperor, though I offer my life daily and with alacrity.
For, though Napoleon too may appear a simple soul
seated at his fireside with his child at his knee, yet you
will never know his nature nor so much as his mood.
He was simple enough and at leisure enough and full
of bonhomie when he gave orders for the shooting of the
Duc d'Enghien, though all the ladies of the court hung
round his neck and besought him not to.... Nay, I
have seen him, at the time of the creation of his new court
and the drawing up of the protocol, when it was a madness of intriguing for precedence amongst those same
ladies-ay, and their lords too! -I have seen him sit
playing by the hour at Manila with half a dozen of those
same ladies, and indulgent and benevolent-and one or
maybe two of them having visited him in his little room
that was guarded by the Mameluke!... And then
suddenly like ice, like steel, with six words he would
break all six hearts on a matter of who should walk first
behind Madame Hortense or Madame Pauline. And mind
you, you might rack your mind and never know whether
he had not invented that simple occasion and played at
that bonhomie merely in order to have the opportunity




172      A   Little Less than Gods
to crush them the more effectually-or whether it had
come into his hand on the spur of the moment, so that
he had no natural bonhomie...
But to be sure, the Colonel-Count mused on, those
women drove the court distracted with their quarrels,
and indulged in treason the better to insure precedence.
He, the Colonel-Count, had seen Napoleon turn round
like a mountain cat from before the fireplace to face
*Madame d'Abrantes-Junot's wife-and address to her
words that would have been out of place in a Bridewell.
And next moment he would be smiling on some pretty
piece-Madame de Frejus as like as not!... But was
the smiling genuine-or the cold rage? Who knew? But
Ney... Ney! Ah, that was different. His rage in battle
was rage; his love for Madame Ney was love; his delight in children delight, and if he grew great cabbages
it was because he loved to have the greatest cabbages
in his Department.
"In short," the Colonel-Count finished, "though I daily
lay down my life for the Emperor in his uniform at the
head of his columns or, for the matter of that, would
lay down my life by intercepting with my own body a
stroke aimed by an assassin at his heart, for Ney I would
gladly go to the gallows or before a firing squad though
Ney were but in his carpet slippers!"
"But, mon colonel," the young man asked, "is it not
true that Ney betrayed the Emperor to these Bourbons?"
"I have talked too much," the Colonel-Count replied.
"You would never think I had a reputation for silence
and discretion such as-as you know-has made me the




A Little Less than Gods


'73


confidant of ladies and the bearer of their billets. But
that loquacity comes from this air which I breathe again
and it is to be presumed that I talk in order that I may
not shout and bawl and cast my shako to the treetops.
So I will make no bones about saying 'No' to your question and I will say to you what I have said to the Emperor himself."
In his opinion Napoleon had erred in sending Ney
along with Marshal Macdonald to negotiate with the
Allies after their entry into Paris. For it is an error in a
very devious and subtle man to send a very simple one to
negotiate for him. The Emperor had declared "that he desired to abdicate his throne so that France might be at
peace, and Ney took him at his word. But the last thing
that Napoleon desired in truth was to abdicate his throne,
whether France were at peace or no. He desired to gain
time.
But Ney resigned the throne for the Emperor and,
once at peace, was, so simply enamoured of the joys and
advantages of peace that his loyalty to the Bourbons,
once he had taken his oath to them, was simple and unshakable. To the various envoys of the King of Elba
who had sounded him- he had returned that one simple
answer, and that, conveyed to Napoleon, had convulsed
him with rage. But the Colonel-Count doubted whether
Napoleon even believed what he said against Ney. He
worked himself up to say it or he believed it policy to say
it. And indeed it is better when those you have loaded
with favours-and fame too, for it was Napoleon who
first proclaimed to the world that Ney was the bravest




174       A  Little Less than Gods
of the brave-so it was indeed bitter to find him steadfast against his benefactor, be the gesture never so
laudable or justified.
"But now," the Colonel-Count said, "we approach the
outskirts of the good village of Cannes and I have talked
enough. Besides we cannot make a formal parade of
entry chattering like two monkeys on horseback!"
An extraordinary elation settled down on that young
man-and again he blessed his olive twig-which he had
over his heart because whilst he had picked it he had
been thinking of his Helene.
Was it not enough to have had an analysis of character
of his demi-gods from one who had been their intimate
for a quarter century? But in addition he was entering
a town at the head of a column of the Napoleonic Army
that for a quarter century too had been the dread and the
cynosure of the entire universe!
On the outskirts there were hovels, rush-thatched and
miserable enough, mostly with upper storeys that had
projecting roofs and no walls, with nets drying all down
their fronts and a fisher population squalid enough. But
there were some well-looking villas, white and agreeable,
with roofs of red tiles and here and there a red pot that
supported a spiky plant with stiff, lush juicy leaves...
And everywhere human beings ran.... They ran onto
the verandas, out of doorways, along the streets before
the horses -at the sound of the music.
It was intolerably thrilling in the narrow main street
that ran through the town-the Marseillaise, shut in between the houses and raging.... There were even




A Little Less than Gods


175


shops, tradesmen who stood at the doors; women with
kerchiefs waved from upper windows that were on a
level with the faces of those that rode.... Wine merchants, oil merchants, fish merchants, taverners, tinsmiths! It was queer to see the everyday accompaniments
of life through a hail of glory!
A couple of young girls who were carrying sheaves
or roses started to see the troops. Then they tore blossoms and buds from the stems and cast them beneath
the feet of Napoleon's charger. One plucked an iris with
two buds from a jar on a butcher's slab and threw it at
George Feilding. It struck him on the shoulder and he
found that that was glory.
They debouched upon an open place one of whose sides
was the sea, and here they came down from their horses;
the guns rumbled to a halt; the men hung their muskets
by the strap over their shoulders and, removing their
bearskins or shakos, wiped their brows. The sun shone;
the populace, that at first backed timidly against the
house walls, ventured gradually by ones and twos into
the Place and towards the soldiers, children clinging to
their mothers' high waists in gestures of taking refuge.
With a queer thrill the young man heard English spoken....Was it not glorious that his compatriots should
see him come riding all glorious, beside a demi-god!








PART
II




I




CHAPTER ONE


M ADAME NEY, all in black, very tall, high-waisted,
brown-eyed, brown-complexioned and beginning
to put on weight as befitted the matron but bearing it
very well as became the gallant wife of the most brilliant
of men, walked with Helene de Frejus on the sanded
paths of the Little Luxembourg, Gardens, Helene being
in a pale violet. The weather was bright in the avenues;
guns thundered in the distance; thrushes ran on the green
lawns, stopped, and ran again. At each reverberation of
a salvo from a distance Madame Ney checked her pace
and placed her hand over her heart.
"It can't be that they are resisting the usurper's entrance," she said. "What a thing are illusions!.. I  Oh,
the poor men!... My poor man!"
"No, my dear, poor, cherished Aglaei," Helene would
say; "it cannot be... it is all finished.... Those
are salvos of joy that salute a re-rising sun!"
They wandered in silence. There were other saunterers
in the garden; a pair of men had odiously dogged their
footsteps; a mother wandered with a child; a dozen or
so of soldiers, with a sergeant, a lieutenant, a colonel
and a general, white cockades in their hats, had lately
come and now stood at ease in a huddle. The sergeant
conducted a man to each of the four entrances of the
garden and saw them fix their bayonets.
I79




i8o


A Little Less than Gods


"Why, it is a little soon," Madame Ney said with deep
bitterness, "to close the gardens to the public before the
king is seated on the still-warm throne of Napoleon!"
When they passed the general in his great hat with
the white cockade, he hesitated; you would have said
he blushed. Then he bade call the men to attention and
saluted the Princess of the Moskwa.
"Nevertheless," Helene said, "he did not expel us at
the bayonet point or inform us that our entree to the gardens was withdrawn. That will come soon. They are in
a hurry!"
"I know that general slightly," Madame Ney said,
"I cannot think of his name. He wears no orders....
Well, what orders is he to wear?... What is anyone
to wear?... You remember, at Lyons, the valet of
Monsieur who alone remained faithful to him in his flight.... The Emperor sent him the cross for fidelity. The
valet was afterwards about the Tuileries, wearing the
cross.... What things one remembers I wonder if
he wears it today!"... Ah, Helene remembered and saw! Before Lyons
the post-carriage of herself and the Baron had overtaken
Napoleon with his few companions-and her heart had
beaten furiously: she could not have believed her heart
could have beaten so furiously or that she could have
mumbled so. George Feilding had ridden to the carriage
side. De Frejus was out on the road speaking to Napoleon on his grey horse. He had been like a man thunderstruck-the young man in scarlet.
He had exclaimed:: "You!" and then: "We shall not.  we shall not be separated...."




A   Little Less than Gods           i8i
She had mumbled: "Please God... please God
not....
Then she knew why she had noted nothing of the long
road from Genoa to there.... She had wept when the
carriage drove on and the Baron had said that if she
was afraid she had better descend and rest at a roadside
house. It was necessary that he should reach Lyons before a Jew called Stossenfusser-something like thatcould leave it with his gold: or hide the gold. It was necessary. The expenses of the Empire were to begin there.
The Jew Stossenfusser had an immense sum-a million
napoleons perhaps. Destined for Louis, and the property
of England!... She remembered
They had caught up with a squadron of the Fourth
Hussars at the bridge before the Lyons suburb of La
Guillaterie and had seen them meet the two battalions
of Monsieur, the King's heir. They had seen Marshal
Macdonald with Monsieur.... The hussars and Monsieur's men had fallen into each other's arms, the royalist
troops tearing the white cockades from their hats and substituting the tricolours that they had already in their
knapsacks! Funny to see two thousand men, all with
their hats off, as if at a job of millinery, the hussars aiding them-holding their packs.... Standing up in the
carriage, her husband huzzaing beside her and waving
his fantastic shako, she had seen the heir to the throne
jostle his horse round through the crush and push, push,
push his way, fleeing, up the street. The soldiers perhaps
hardly knew him; the faces of the Bourbon princes were
not familiar to their subjects or soldiery.... Marshal
Macdonald, however, the men had seized. But other




I82       A   Little Less than Gods
royalist troops coming down the street hustled him away
and set him free; then they, too, began tearing the cockades from their hats! French soldiers do not arrest a
Marshal of France!
A guard of honour-in white! Young men and fat old
citizens-in the King's white!-had further blocked the
streets. They were coming to range themselves round the
Emperor-the guard of honour of Monsieur! They wore
on their breasts enormous tricolour rosettes. They
should have dressed themselves altogether in red, white
and blue-or have painted their skins; Napoleon had dismissed them with contumely. The carriage of the Baron
and Baroness de Frejus had been blocked till Napoleon
came riding up. She had again seen her young gallant in
scarlet for a second or so. Her heart had not beaten so
fast as before-but, ah, it had beaten!... Gallant,
good, immensely strong..
He should have been there, now, in the Little Luxembourg.... Why was he not there? Why must she see
him and not see him?... It was as if scarlet superimposed itself over the lilacs: vision-scarlet: memoryfeatures! She had been with him three days ago at
Aglae's! She was this morning to have said "Yes" to his
urgings.... By that time she should have surrendered! She had already felt a hundred times the giving
way of her knees! Beneath the muslin skirt with its violet
sprigs! She felt still his farewell embrace upon her'
lips....
Madame Ney beside her said: "I am fain to wish he
might come that I might see him.... But it would be
better, with those soldiery, if he did not come!"




A Little Less than Gods


i83


H6lene said: "He... ah, the Marshall Oh, what
need has he to fear the soldiery?"
Madame Ney said: "Have you not already predicted
to us a White Terror? In the Revolution they had the
Red Terror. Now it is to be the White Terror. They
say that the ultra-legitimists have already made out lists
for proscription... You know your own cousins are
the most active at it. How do you know your own name
and mine are not by now upon their lists?"
Hele~ne said: "There is no soldier of France would
arrest the Marshal!"
"You say that to comfort me," Madame Ney answered.
"It is not what you think. Soldiers in their time arrested
Jesus-why not then a Marshal of France?"
She added: "I wish those men did not follow us. I do
not like those men."
The men were large with the bulging appearance of
bruisers, in black, with immense high hats, cutaway
coats and knee-breeches. They appeared to'saunter without purpose, inspecting the treetops.
Helene said: "Let us walk across the open towards the
Closerie des Lilas. Maybe we shall see a carriage coming.
If my husband is not here soon he will collide with
George. I would not have them meet. Frederick will without doubt consent to the divorce if you ask it, but I would
not have them meet!"
They crossed a grassy open space that went up hill,
having before them and to the west the restaurant and
garden of the Closerie des Lilas, a small estaminet with
its name in great letters between the upper windows and
a long, blank brick wall, roughly plastered, above which




i84


A Little Less than Gods


peeped the tops of the lilac trees. Here the Parisians of
hot evenings would walk amongst the bushes and drink
wines, but by day it was a very solitary spot.
So it had seemed a very proper place for these women
who went in some fear of proscription to meet their menfolk who might well have fears still greater. It was a high
place. From where they turned to look down the road
they could see, glimmering and green to the north, heights
with a windmill here and there turning.
"Between here and there lies all Paris!" Madame Ney
said. "It is for the dominion of that space that we have
so suffered. It is strange to see it lie so calm!"
She said: "If we had not come up so fast from Lagny
-if we had had less good horses we should not have had
so to wait!"
"It is agony!" Helene said. "It might have been better
to have appointed a cafe in the crowded streets. There
there would have been something to occupy the eyes
and the mind.      We are besides very conspicuous
here."
"It is too late to think of that,'' Madame Ney said.
"Ah..." Her brown skin through which the red blood
glowed grew ashen: her brown eyes stared, wide apart.
Far away down the long road that ran into Paris at an
angle to the hedges of the Little Luxembourg, a carriage
was coming at a gallop. It had four horses; as it swung
from side to side of the road they could see, very high because of the great springs that supported it, that the carriage held a single, large man in a great hat.
Madame Ney held her hand over her heart, her face
paler and paler.




A Little Less than Gods


i85


"It is Ney!" she said. "I wish there were no soldiers
here. And why a general?"
"He was here to direct the posting of the sentries at
the entries," Helene reassured. She added: "No; it is
not the Marshal, neither. It is Frejus."
Madame Ney said: "Oh, I am thankful. The Marshal
must remain hiding in obscure places. He must not come
out into the open." Slowly the colour came back to her
cheeks. "But nevertheless I must meet him," she said,
"he is so obstinate. He needs counsel. Yet he can come
neither to our house here, nor yet in the country. It is
hard that folk who have so served their country should
be treated so!"
The horses in the carriage broke into a trot, the postboys leaning back to restrain them. Perceiving the ladies,
Frejus stood up in the carriage and pointed to them.
The equipage swerved over the turf, having been making
for the Little Luxembourg entrance.
Frejus alighted slowly when the footman who had
been behind him let down the steps. He was tired but he
was also weighted, having in each hand a round cloth
bag that might have contained a pudding. But those bags
were too weighty. He dropped one back onto the cushion
of the carriage so that he might remove his hat with a
flourish.
"Madame la Princesse," he said, "I have here what
was needed. There are in addition bills on the Fusstosser of Brussels, Antwerp and London, and they
can give him bills on New... New York is it not
called?... if he decides to cross the ocean." He
dropped the other back too into the carriage.




i86


A Little Less than Gods


He placed himself beside Madame Ney. Till then he
had not looked at Helene. They walked towards the Little
Luxembourg.
"The Marshal is not yet here?" he asked. "It is otherwise all in readiness. Another carriage waits at the crossroads a mile back. All my men are most trustworthy!"
He looked at Helene then with a deliberate and incomprehensible glance-as a gourmand might gloat over a large
meal. "It would appear," he said, "that my women are
not so trustworthy. It would appear that Madame and
I are not to meet again. They say in England where
Madame la Baronne was born that rats desert a sinking ship!"
Helene stretched her hands appealingly towards him
across Madame la Marechale.
"Oh, do not say that," she said. "You of all of us are
the only one that stands in no peril and have all your
wealth and gear. Would I desert you if you were in peril
or sickness? You know I would not. Nor yet if you were
in need!"
The two suspicious, bulging men had emerged from the
Little Luxembourg and deviously approached the three
who were now near the entrance. They surveyed the
party with immense eyes and passed on.
"Do not speak too loud," Madame Ney said; "I do
not like those men."
"I should not myself choose them for companions!"
the Baron said, and he and Helene looking back simultaneously saw that one of the pair had his arm raised
and the other was studying a paper.




A Little Less than Gods


i87


"What shall we do? What shall we do?" Helene cried
out.
"Why, we will walk in the Little Luxembourg Gardens," the Baron answered. "There is nothing else for
it. They are between us and the carriage and there are
soldiery on the roads."
The legs of those women would scarcely support them,
but they reached a seat nevertheless and sat on it side
by side after the Baron had jauntily dusted it with his
red and gold bandanna. His hat was black and immense
but all the rest of him was in tight blue, stockings and
all.
"Why," he said, "it is a pretty scheme, a journey to
Elysium." He,addressed more particularly Madame Ney,
who regarded him with pitiful eyes. "If my wife would
have a divorce she had better procure it today or tomorrow. For in a day or two there will be no more
divorces." He added ironically to his wife: "And I might
fall ill between the cup and the lip, or fall upon need.
And what should poor Nellie do then?"
Madame Ney said: "I do not know what to think!.
There are too many things to think.... You are a
good man, Frederick...
He bent to raise her hand to his lips.
"I am a good man if I am not crossed," he said. "But
there will none the less be obstacles..."
There came footsteps behind their backs. A man cleared
his throat and exclaimed a little tremulously:
"M. le Marechal... M. le Prince de la Moskwa....




i88


A Little Less than Gods


The Baron's face extended itself in a profound and
enigmatic grin. It went to Helene's heart to see that grin
-it was so humorous and so damned. She said to herself: "Thank God, the Marshal is not here. These soldiers
are here to arrest him!" It was clear now why the men
in black had followed them!
The Baron said to her in bad English:
"I presume you have not cuckolded me.    But you
will have difficulties! I desired to call in on your popinjay
just now, for I have a message to give him. But his
staircase was full of redcoats who put bayonets on my
chest."
It was the first time she had seen him face to face
since she had written to him that she desired a divorce.
He was suffering: certainly he was suffering. Grief descended upon her.
The general with his colonel beside him stood in front
of them, between them and the grass. The general was
young and ingenuous, the colonel much older: there
were young generals in those days. He said:
"Mon Mare'chal, I regret... before Madame la
Princesse..."
Frejus looked at the ground, in reflection. The colonel
whispered to the general:
"That is not Ney... I am sure it is not Ney, or he
is much altered!"
Frejus grinned and his face cleared.
"You propose to shoot me!" he exclaimed with a wide
gesture towards the landscape beyond the hedge of the
garden. "There is an admirable wall there and no one to




A Little Less than Gods


i89


witness the dead but the firing squad and these ladies!"
Helene exclaimed: "Oh, Frederick...." They must
not shoot him.
The general exclaimed: "God forbid!" his face suffused
with blood. "This is an arrest... a detention.... Do
you believe I would preside at your assassination?"
The colonel had beckoned to him one of the men in
black. The fellow approached, removing his black hat
and placing it behind his back. He had a red bulbous nose
and was noticeably bald. He whispered to the colonel
behind his hand. He read in a paper, stared at Frejus,
whispered again to the colonel.                        0
"I cannot believe it to be the Prince of the Moskwa,"
the colonel said. "The features it is true have a resemblance: but there is a difference in the bearing..
Yet it must be. I admit that it must be!"
The fellow in black said: "The letter from Madame
la Marechale... I have the copy here... begged
Marshal Ney to meet Madame la Marechale at this spot
at this hour!"
Madame Ney placed her hand over her heart: her
eyes, which had been gazing across the lawns towards the
carriage, became as fixed as if they had been cast in brown
metal-an extraordinary gaze!
"You are too eager for your reward," the colonel said
to the informer. "If you or Fouche or whoever it was
intercepted the letter, how could Ney have the information, so how could he be here?"
Madame Ney gazed continuously at the carriage. The
footman got down from the rumble and, though it was




I90


A Little Less than Gods


fine day, engaged himself in raising the hood. Hielne
could see the top of a tall hat behind the rumble from
which the footman had descended.
"My God! He is there... Ney is there!" She whispered that in English to her husband, but kept her eyes
on the gravel of the path.
The informer exclaimed to the colonel:
"Do you suppose we did not deliver the letter to M.
du Ferrand to whom it was addressed? It was the Comte
Decazes who signed the warrant, not the Duc d'Otranto.
We followed also Ferrand... but this has proved the
better shadowing. That is all there is to it! "
Madame Ney exclaimed suddenly with simulated scorn
but her voice was shaking:
"Can there not be an end of all this? Can you not
make an end of all this dirty work that a general of France
should blush to engage on? But you are in good company
if so early the Bourbons have found a peer of France
to sign the warrant.... But make an end."
She shivered but could not keep her eyes off the carriage.
The general blushed indeed and exclaimed in turn
hotly: "Madame, I am here as a courtesy, that a higher
officer may be present to wait upon the Marshal. This
Colonel Durand, the Provost Marshal's assistant, is here
to effect the arrest itself."
Madame Ney rose with a fine scorn.
"Well, the hangman's apprentice must do hangman's
work. I beg you to go on with it...." She exclaimed:
"Oh!" in a piteous tone and: "This waitirg is killing
me! " She sank down again on the bench and sobbed piti



A  Little Less than Gods           191
fully, covering her face. She whispered to Helene who,
her husband having sprung to his feet, had her arms
about the weeping woman:
"Why will he not drive away! Why will he not drive
away? I saw him enter the carriage. Others could have
seen...
"All eyes are on us here," Helene whispered back.
"How could he drive away and leave you whom he sees
surrounded by soldiery!"
The Baron had stretched out his hands, his wrists together.
"Here, put on your handcuffs," he cried in a clear voice.
"Conduct me before the Provost Marshal or any other
low company you keep. When I was soldiering that was
a fellow whose society I avoided!"
The general exclaimed: "God forbid, mon marechal.... But if you will walk with me..."
The Baron said: "But willingly, my general.... I
think you are General... General Lamoriciere."
Madame Ney, who was indeed shaken with grief and
fear, extended a hand towards the Baron, her face still
covered by her thin shawl.
"A brave man... a good man..." she said, but
Helene sprang towards her husband. She clung with both
hands to his shoulder.
"They shall not hurt you!" she said. "They dare not
harm you. Tell me that they shall not harm a hair of
your head."
The young general decently withdrew to a few paces;
Frejus pushed her from him and stood jauntily, his legs
apart, a shining figure in the sun.




I92       A  Little Less than Gods
"Why, madame," he exclaimed ironically, "if you have
cuckolded me it is all one to me what they do to
me.
She wept: "Never! Never! I never have..
He said: "Why then, madame, it is all the worse. For
if it is bad to lose an unfaithful wife, it is all the worse
to lose one that is true to you. For my part I care not
what they do to me."
She exclaimed: "Oh, cruel! Cruel!"
"Madame," he answered, "the world is a cruel place....But I do not anticipate that they can do me much
harm. They should be laughed to tatters. Warn however
Schultheiss. If they detain me bid him bring me body
linen and other comforts. I bid you farewell. If your
gallant is indeed arrested I would advise you to communicate with milor Assheton Smith and to hurry, hurry,
hurry. Milor is in Wales; a long journey. If you detain
me here longer you will endanger the departure of...
him who must not be arrested. That I should deprecate
for I have put myself to some trouble that he may escape I
She cried out: "It is I that will bring you your body
linen and comforts, not Schultheiss!"
Ever since the news of Waterloo had come three weeks
before-and on the same day, when all Paris ran distracted in the narrow streets, she had met in the rue St.
Honore her detested cousin Louis, otherwise the Vicomte
Clermont-St. Cyr-Brion, who had told her with a sour
triumph that they, the Royalists, were already making
out their lists of proscriptions-ever since the news of
Waterloo she had lived under overpowering emotions of




A Little Less than Gods


193


fear, passion and despair for public affairs. Now all these
came to a head and for a moment she no longer knew
what happened. She saw vaguely Frejus walking away
beside the young general, the squad of soldiers marching
at a decent interval behind them; the July sun beat down
on her but she was shivering and she was aware of
tottering, both her hands stretched out and downwards
in order to balance herself... tottering and wavering
towards a bench in the shade of the avenue. She must
be in shade; she could not bear the light. Her heart beat
rapidly like that of a linnet that she had once held in her
hand; her lips were parted like the same linnet's, the
breath issuing from her parched mouth in little jets as
fast as the beatings of her heart. Her mind had stopped.
She was aware that a woman's arms were about her;
that a woman was entreating her to go to the carriage. She
exclaimed:
"No, no I Do not go yet.... Observe carefully that no
one watches you! "
She did not know why she panted those words out: she
must be voicing a thought she had formerly had. She
held on to her wavering mind to say:
"Walk round... walk round outside the garden before you approach the carriage. It will take you twenty
minutes away from your husband but the precaution is
worth while. You will see if you are followed. If not come
to me and I will go with you.... Or no, I will not go
with you.... Go! Walk! Walk!"
She did not look up but sat staring at the gravel: footsteps went away from her. It was all quiet; not even &
thrush sang in the noontide heat.... A small statue of




'94


A Little Less than Gods


Pan on a column stood poised on one foot, the other
raised knee-high. He blew into double pipes. His face
grinned-as Frederick's had grinned. A grin of the
damned.... Frederick suffered the tortures of the
damned. Pan too perhaps: he had no soul! He was immortal but had no soul!
You might have said that of the Emperor until the
other day: he had appeared immortal at least, and cold.
But at Fontainebleau he had at least appeared mortal.
Solitary, unoccupied, deprived of tenderness, standing at
a high window, playing with the blind-cord. A demi-god
with no occupation but to play with a blind-cord in an
empty room!... He had worn white breeches and a
white waistcoat, a blue coat with a red collar. He was
grown baldish; the dark hair on his temples thin..
But why a red collar? A silver star on his right breast!
Why a silver star? Why on his right breast?.
Why?
They had spoken, but he had not looked round. She
herself had approached him and, bending, had kissed
the alabaster hand that was behind his back. Madame
Ney had been prepared to do the same-for remembrance
of old times. Latterly he had been ungenerous to Ney.
But Madame Ney was generous and kind. He had however pivoted round on his feet, slowly. His face was immobile, like marble. It had the still look of destiny: but
it had always the still look of destiny. His glance too
was always as of an eagle's. So it remained. His brows
nevertheless lifted themselves.
He said: "Madame la Princesse!" and remained pondering. He went on: "Ah, you are passing on your way




a Little Less than Gods


I95


to Montereau. The Prince of the Moskwa is at Montereau.
Tomorrow or next day he will be only General Ney as I
shall be but General Bonaparte."
Madame Ney, taller by a head than he, had uttered
grief, condolences; her brown eyes filled with tears. She
was in a riding cloak: they were both in riding cloaks
though they had come in the Frejus berline, Madame
Ney in bottle-green, she herself in light fawn-against
the dust. There was no knowing whither they would go
or how, after Montereau. Napoleon said:
"The Prince of the Moskwa is a brave man. He did
well out there. I should have given him an army earlier.... But... the iron cage! Take care that they do
not catch him or they will take him to Paris in an iron
cage..
Madame Ney erected her head; her eyes glowed.
"Sire," she said, "if they did that I should shoot him
between the bars. Through the heart."
"And me?" Napoleon had asked. "Ney once swore to
Louis to take me from Lyons to Paris in an open cage: if
he had, would you have shot me through the heart?"
"Sire," she answered, "first you and then myself!"
"That is the right answer!" he said. He added, speaking faster: "Why! Tell the Marshal that I invite him
to go with me to the Americas. I go tonight to Rochefort.
They say there is liberty there and it appears to be a vast
continent. There should be room there for Ney and me
to find corners. Besides they are at war with those
English. Maybe Ney and I... Lafayette led them to
victory against those islanders. They will remember! "
"But no, no! " he added hastily. "I am no longer a poli



I96       A  Little Less than Gods
tician. I am a general that has retired in order to write
his memories!"
He added: "In that too Prey could aid me! Bid him
come! I go tonight to Rochefort and there aboard a
frigate... to the west!"
They were the last words of his that she could remember. After that they could only see through their tears
that, before they had reached the door of the long room,
he had turned again to the window and had the blindcord in his fingers. He had kissed both their foreheads
with his cold lips as they bent before him.
Nevertheless, over the cobbled street of Montereau
and to the door of the inn as they mounted the steps a
trooper had come clattering prodigiously with a note on a
folded paper. It had read, in a strange, hurried hand:
"Madame Helene: the papers relating to the duel and
parole of your English friend are in the governor's bureau
on the island. Bid him secure them or he may yet come
before a firing squad! " There was added in another hand,
in pencil. "I salute thee, N." And then: "On entering my
carriage going towards boundless distances!"
At first, standing on the inn step in the blinding sun,
the three words, irregular across the scrap of paper, and
the initial alone entered her mind.... But when the
rest of the note had at last conveyed its message, immense
and unceasing fear had possessed her whole being. For
it was true that until then she had thought only that her
lover might protect-oh, Frejus perhaps: Ney even.
Even the demi-god himself... the fallen demi-god!
That had been a week... oh, only a week before! It
had been the last day but one of June: now it was the




A Little Less than Gods


197


8th  of July.... Nine  days... nine years...,
Eight? Eighteen since she had met her cousin in the rue
St. Honor'! The odious, repulsive, flushed, swaggering
gamester.... He had pulled a paper from his tail
pocket and pointed out names to her... a copy of the
list of the proscribed that they had been drawing up in
a tavern. He had boasted: "Ah: in the Revolution they
had the Red Terror; now you shall have a White one
that shall freeze the mind of the world to -the reeling
poles!" He had said she should see things that would
put the beheading of the Queen and the pike of the
Lamballe in the shade; she should hear the roll of
tumbrils enough to deafen the memory of the cannon
of Austerlitz! She regretted that she had let him read no
further than the name of Marshal Ney, which headed
the list. But she could not bear his proximity and his
vinous breath had made her retch. Besides, a crowd had
gathered, growling to confirm him-a crowd that three
days before would have dragged him screaming to a
lamp.... That had been the 21st of June. The longest
day. When fairies go abroad!
But it had not been until she had received in the street
that seemed dead quiet after the clattering of the hoofsit had not been until she had received the note from
Napoleon- Imagine a note from Napoleon! -that she
had known fear, overwhelming, profound, all-embracing.
And it had not been till then that she had known passion-oh, unbearable passion that descended suddenly
and left her there in the street with all her limbs powerless.
To say that she had not listened to his pleadings; to




198


A Little Less than Gods


say that she had not till then known love would have been
trifling with the issue.... She had known many phases
-in a hundred days. Say a hundred and twenty...
She cried out in alarm. She exclaimed even: "Frejusl"
But it was not Frejus who was in front of her. He exclaimed:
"Where is she? Madame la Marechale.... I will
tear the Conciergerie stone from stone if they... I am
not one to shrink from trifles....
It was not, of course, Frejus. He had the same bulk:
almost the same attire.... But all men then had the
same attire or near it. All bulky men! She said:
"No! I beg you to sit down. Remove too your hat.
That you may be less observable. There is Aglae!"
Madame Ney appeared at the exit of the garden beyond
the lawns and the further avenue; she walked on, slowly,
without recognition of them.
He gave a great gulp of breath and exclaimed, harshly
and terrifyingly:
"I knew they dare not arrest her. I would have raised
Paris and torn down the Conciergerie!"
He went on again: "This is your fault, Helene, with
your old wives' tale of a White Terror. Who would dare
to arrest me? There are a hundred and ten thousand
troops in arms that would rise at once at the name of
Ney.... Besides there is the amnesty that was declared
at Brussels... and I have helped the King.... Consider!... But for my speech in the Chamber the Emperor would now command those troops and the Bourbons would not yet be here.... It was you who put




A  Little Less than Gods           199
those maggots into my wife's head.    Who would
arrest me? Or her!"
He threw himself onto the bench as if onto soft cushions: he remained, panting, like a bull before the toreador
in the ring after a long course.
"My God!" he exclaimed. "My God!" He wiped his
brows with a great handkerchief. He said: "Dearest
Helene! I saw Aglae" here. Then I did not see her, but
I saw infantry marching away. Forgive me. I ought not
to have come out of the carriage."
He was astonishingly like Frejus and like Frejus he
had the slightly guttural intonation of the Alsatian speaking French. He had the chestnut hair, the green-brown
eyes, the high florid cheek-bones, the heavy figure. Well,
they were both Alsatians. In his patent of nobility
Frejus was described as Friedrich Scheffauer, born at
Colmar. Ney had been born at Strasburg-or maybe at
Kehl. The two men had often speculated together as to
whether they had not a common ancestry-and Frejus
had a great-uncle that was called Neu, from MUnster.
The first German general that the Marshal had defeated
had been called Neu. The Germans pronounced it Noy,
but the French No-very like Ney, muted.... But
Frejus had spent a long time in the Levant where there
were bankers and to spare. In Corsica too. Long enough
to call himself a Corsican when he desired to please the
Emperor.
The Marshal said: "Yes, it is true. Seated here I am
less visible than elsewhere. I will await her here!" Now
that his breath had come back to him and the suffusion
of blood had left his eyes he was less like Frejus. The




200


A Little Less than Gods


colour of his cheek-bones was more fresh; he was lighter
of foot. He had an inward glow and a tranquillity of great
power that no adversity could take from him. He said:
"Dearest Helene. I have been much annoyed. I had,
did I not, at Montereau, the snuff-box the Tsar gave
me? I cannot find it."
Perils went off his mind as clouds leave the sun. His
chestnut hair was brighter than that of Frejus....
Helene sighed. But why should she sigh because God had
allotted to her for the time a mate less glorious than Ney?
She had a lover as glorious and as brave.... And it
was not fitting to sigh because her mate was the paunchier,
softer in the flesh... not at that moment when Frejus
had performed a deed of courage. She said:
"You left your snuff-box on the table of the inn.
Madame has it safely. The soldiers you saw marching
away had arrested the Baron, my husband. In error
for you!"
Ney threw himself back on the seat, roaring in unrestrained mirth. He had an immense laugh.
"For me!" he exclaimed. "Men could mistake that
mound of jelly for me! Have they eyes? I have always
been called a fine figure of a man!"




CHAPTER TWO


SUDDENLY he threw himself forward; his face as
puzzled as that of a bull who finds himself surrounded by picadors and the rest in the blazing sun
immediately after the gloom of the pen.
"But..." he said: "but..."
Sudden illumination and rage lit up his stubborn features:
"But if they arrested that oaf in mistake for me...
then..."
He raised a great, threatening fist:
"Who dared... who dared   to... to... And
Louis not yet..
He regarded her with incredulous, bloodshot eyes.
"But you are jesting," he said; "it is in bad taste, let
me tell you. Where is my wife?... Nevertheless I saw
soldiers... only a few! They would not arrest me
with a corporal's guard!"
She said: "No doubt they thought that if they sent
more the cortege would cause attention.... Attempts
at rescue, perhaps.... It was the Comte Decazes
who signed the... the lettre de cachet! The young fellow who was Fouche's underling. But the King liked him
much."
He sat pondering, shaking his head a little.
"Where is my wife?" he asked. "I must consult...
But no..."
20I




202       A  Little Less than Gods
He regarded Helene again, his heavy-lidded eyes a
little devious.
"No!" he exclaimed huskily; "do not tell Madame la
Princesse what I... what I let drop...." He added:
"She is long in coming.... You would imagine at such
a time she would hasten...
She said: "She has to take precautions. She has to see
that no one is following her."
He exclaimed: "Who would dare to follow..." Then
he relapsed into silence, puzzling!
It was difficult indeed for him to realize how the
world had changed. She herself could see that. It seemed
but yesterday that tumultuous crowds had been acclaiming the victory of Quatre Bras and the Empire had appeared solid on its base.... It was true that three days
later they had equally acclaimed the defeat of Mont
St. Jean. The long silence lasted. It was astonishingly
silent. Well, it was a July noon. Pan's hour!... Frejus
was a sort of Pan. Not Ney. Oh no, not Ney!... It
astonished her that she had her thoughts clear again.
It seemed scarcely ten minutes since she had been near
delirium..
That was no boon.... It seemed to her that she
alone of the little clan she cared for, had to bear the
whole burden of fear and knowledge. She knew not only
the gloomy and implacable nature of the Bourbon hatred
but she had especial fears. She had to fear not only for
her husband, not only for her lover, but for these friends
who even then did not know to what lengths the mournful and chilly hatred of the Bourbons could go. And not
only of the Bourbons! There were the whole clan of the




A Little Less than Gods


203


Emigres-her clan! If the obese and somnolent royal personages should be inclined to stay their hands they must
-to secure their very throne and its supporters! —cast
a great prey to the wolves. And if her cousin and his mates
were odious and cruel when they were besotted with wine
-as Clermont-St. Cyr had been when she had met him in
the street-they were worse than that when they were
coldly and soberly vindictive. Drunk, they were relatively
good-natured satyrs: at least cheerful, but when sober
they were snakes-cold, damned, infinitely skilful at
plotting disaster.... Gamblers, pimps, small tradesmen, drunkards, whoremongers-they would sell their
honours to the devil and then scheme to betray the purchaser himself. And these men held in their hands the
lives of all she most loved. And these men had a mania
of gold..
Her husband had diverted from their crawling fingers
a stream of gold that might have come to them!
Why did that thought have to come to her at that
moment? Why? Why? Had she not tortures enough!
Just Heavens!... Not enough!
There was this bull-man-this Minotaur!-to be
feared for. And his beloved, his beloved wife. The dear!
The Majestic!... Oh, poor dears: they could not know
what was coming.... The wife feared at most exile.
He, the bull-man, feared nothing. He bellowed and whilst
bellowing felt still all-powerful.... A demi-god!
Why were men so brave? Frejus, whom this man had
called an oaf, was maybe the braver of the two. He
at least knew that he was running into grave peril when
he allowed the noose prepared for Ney to settle over his




204       A  Little Less than Gods
neck. Grave peril! His cynical, Satanic mind appreciated
that. He must at least be aware that he was putting himself into the power of men at whom he had gibed, whom
he had thwarted.
The long, stone, closed facade of the Fusstossers' bank
at Lyons came into her mind-with Frejus, suddenly
descended from their carriage, hammering on the great,
yellow-grained door with the handle of the whip he had
snatched from one of the postillions.... There was
gold behind those doors.... There had been none when
Frejus had gone away!... She remembered the eyes
of the Jew peeping at them from the grilles that obscured
the windows... the grin on Frejus's face!
He had-it was true-left paper in exchange for their
gold. You could trust him not to let the pockets of the
Fusstossers suffer.... But those people had a certain
fidelity to their employers; and what good was paper
-signed with the best names in the world-to their employers at that juncture? It was to make enemies of them
merely to make them  fail their employers.... And
that rout of drunkards, gamblers and whoremongers had
had to flee from Paris without the English-derived gold.... English-derived!
Alas! English gold was at the bottom of all these disasters.... And this had proved not even to be English
gold. Or yes, English ingots... but that bullion had
turned out to be English gold coined by the Fusstossers
and the English in Flanders. In the shape of napoleons!... For the payment of Wellington's troops when he
had been doing his cold butcher's work round Bordeaux.




A Little Less than Gods


205


Butcher Wellington could not pay his way with guineas.... Oh, singular ramifications of gold... English
guineas were worth less in exchange than napoleons, so
people would not take them! Yet Napoleon was tottering
then to his first fall.... All the same it had had to
be napoleons that the Fusstossers smuggled through
France to Wellington....
And it was the last instalments of this gold, returning
from Bordeaux, that Frejus had demanded of the Jew in
the great house at Lyons.
Well, he had known it had been dangerous! He had
known that if Napoleon fell a second time he would
have, piling themselves on his back to drag him down,
not only the Fusstossers, but the drunkards and gamblers
and the Bourbons and the English-and the implacable
Wellington! He had known itl His grin-his mischievous
magpie's, his Pan's grin-betokened that. Now he had
put himself into their power. To save Ney!... Why?... Well, they were both Alsatians.... In their
power! Wellington ruled that city, its palaces, its streets,
its jails!... And you could say that Frejus had betrayed the Bourbon king! He had financed the Bourbon
king in England... If he had not done that financing,
Louis XVIII would have been less obese. He might have
been able to enter his capital a-horseback as a king
should. For surely no one else would have lent money
to Louis and his minions if Frejus had not backed the
loans. Then Louis would have starved!
Since then Frejus had financed Napoleon.... That
was to betray Louis. If you feed Louis and then Napoleon




206       A  Little Less than Gods
that is to betray Louis!... And Louis had again entered Paris in his carriage! And Frejus was already no
doubt in a cell.
Why, merely to let himself be arrested in place of
another was a crime! And when they came to investigate
and found that he was that Alsatian!
Why then had he done it? Why had he mutely submitted to arrest? Partly to save Ney? Partly out of despair at the fall of Napoleon.... But he was not ruined.
He had sufficiently speculated in the opposite camps —
she knew that!-to cover himself. He had told her that
-out of consideration, to spare her anxiety about money!... If he had not done that would she ever have yielded
to the supplications of the young man? She did not
know..
She remembered Frejus suddenly as he had told her,
standing beside her whilst she sat at her dressing table
in her tall boudoir of their great hotel in the rue St.
Honore. He had been in negotiation with the London
Fusstossers for English funds that were then much depreciated owing to the news and the endless drain of
gold from England.... England had not been able to
find troops enough to come up to the standard of the
Allies. So she paid twenty pounds a year for each footsoldier missing and thirty for each cavalry-man...
Always, always the English goldl
She remembered! Frejus, with his other grin that attended successful speculations had laid his hand consolatorily on her shoulder. All the colour had gone out
of the pink silk roses that draped her mirror; out of
the pink silk wrapper that was about her shoulders



A Little Less than Gods


207


and out of her shoulders and face in the mirror! He had
suddenly appeared to her black-haired and moustached!... When he had been agreeable to her she saw him as
chestnut-haired!
He had bidden her not to be anxious. She should keep
her great hotel and her great equipages, the bay horses
and the white, the palfreys and jennets! He had made
the investments in her name!
She had sprung suddenly up and faced him.
"I had rather," she had cried out, "you had taken
for me the bottom-most chamber in the bottom-most pit
of hell!"
He had laughed and argued with her, his voice going
on and on, but she had not answered. Her knees had
weakened and she had sunk down again before her mirror. She had determined to be cruel to him. How then?
He was behind her. She had a sense of him, black,
greasy, loquacious, floridly troubled. If she' were not
advantaged by the speculation, others would have been.... She had a sense of the Emperor, slaving, slaving,
slaving for France in the great halls of the Tuileries
-the lonely figure!
Ah, and she had a sense of the other-the young man,
splendid and spotless, impassioned and pained beyond
bearing.... He awaited her now and she was 'overwhelmed by the sense of him, too, lonely in her great
salon, standing at the window and gazing into the courtyard with its high blank wall.... All the while that
oaf spoke on in his suety voice with the burred accent
she felt the presence of the other. She was going to him:
she was going to him. For ever... Oh, to the Americas!,




208


A Little Less than 'Gods


For he too was a pained soul! Life, gaiety, assurance
had faded out of him! No, you would never have known
it to look at him. He remained erect, his glance straightforward, his voice thrilling..
Her face looked cruel in the glass. Cruel! Cruel!.
She took her hare's foot and minutely darkened the
inner corners of her eyes. She must account to the other
for the look of cruelty. But when she was in his arms!
She rose and pointed an imperious hand to the door.
She said:
"Go! You have never been a husband to me..
Now I will no longer be so much as a decoy for you!
I came to you with no more than a shift of my own to
my back. I will leave you in the same trim! "
Nevertheless he was waiting outside her door when she
came out in a little frock of black.
"If you go to that popinjay," he had said, "I go too."
"Then I shall not go!" she had said and had gone
back again into her room. She had written a note to the
young man bidding him await her at the house of Madame
Ney and had sent it by her maid through the other door.
She had too prayed the young man to shun her husband
as he would the plague. He must not kill Frejus in a
duel.... Frejus was thundering on her door raving that
she had cuckolded him and addressing to her in any
language of which he was at all master, except French,
the foulest epithets at his command. She admitted him
at last and he was revealed in all the disorder of a heavy
man exhausted by passion-grasping at his neckerchief,
his hair in his eyes, staggering in his gait, leaning against




A Little Less than Gods


209


the gilded door-posts or the door itself. He began to ask
her incessantly if she had been unfaithful to him and for
a long time she returned him no answer. At last she said:
"No! I have always been faithful to you. But I shall
be so no longer if you do not consent to divorce me or to
a nullification of our marriage brought about how you
will! "
He grasped her with both his hands on her shoulders
and so steadied himself, gazing deep into her eyes.
"That is true?" he kept on asking. "True? True?
True?" Then he had rushed from the room and apparently
had coursed half through the house in search of George
Feilding. Then he had once more returned and uttered
a number of disjointed speeches that she had not been
able to follow.
At the time she had been full of loathing for him.
She had left the house and had placed herself under
the protection of the Princesse de la Moskwa who sadly
enough needed consolation and companionship and who
was willing enough to conduct negotiations with the
Baron. Frejus Madame Ney by no means disliked. He
had conducted many successful negotiations for Ney and
had even gone so far as to remonstrate with the Emperor
as to the neglect that Napoleon meted out to the bravest
of brave men. But the Baron had replied that then was
no time for negotiations and they imagined that, as in
the course of his ravings he had threatened to do, he
had written to Squire Feilding about the whole matter.
The Squire might be imagined as having a double interest in any marriage of his son to Madame de Frejus,




210


A Little Less than Gods


for not only was the boy his heir but he had provided the
dowry for Helene herself.
That the Baron should have brought the money with
the aid of which the Marshal was to transport himself
abroad was inevitable enough. He was the Marshal's
banker-and indeed in those unsettled moments when
no one knew whether the next coin of the realm should be
a napoleon or a louis or even a guinea or a thaler it
would have been difficult enough for Madame Ney to
obtain money for her husband. And Helene herself had
been ready to meet her husband in the company of the
Neys since she imagined that by now he might he resigned
enough to submit himself to the combined remonstrances
of Madame Ney and his wife. He had never been pigheadedly obstinate.
At Montereau Ney had shown little fear that the
Bourbons would take steps against him. He cited the
Brussels amnesty and imagined himself too popular with
the inhabitants of Paris to dread molestation at the hands
of the Royalists. But he saw that his wife was overwhelmed by fear at the news Helene had given her of
the list of proscriptions her cousin had exhibited, and
he had lazily and good-humouredly consented to remain in that remote spot and to take the precautions
that his wife had exacted of him.
So, the night before, the two women had proceeded
across country to Lagny from which place Madame Ney
had dispatched a note to the Baron begging him to be
there in the Little Luxembourg close to the Closerie des
Lilas-a spot which at the early hour of nine might be
trusted to be entirely deserted. At the same time Helene




A  Little Less than Gods           211
de Frejus had written to George Feilding begging him
to pack sufficient clothes for a possibly long journey and
to proceed by a roundabout way to the inn of the Closerie
des Lilas itself, where he should wait unobserved until,
the interview with de Frejus being closed and their plans
decided, they should come for him in the berline.
Madame Ney and she had had the vague scheme of
their driving to Belgium as an English couple with French
friends and there embarking for England, where Ney
imagined that he had admirers sufficient to secure him
from molestation. Or they might even proceed to the
Americas!
Beside her on the seat, with the whole world crumbled
to pieces around them, the Marshal made a slight, as if
ruminant sound. He had come to an end of his meditations.
"There remain then the Americas!" he said. "I do not
believe that the Bourbons dare exile me. Or even the
Allies! But I prefer to exile myself!"'
She sighed a little. The prolonged absence of Madame
Ney was beginning to cause her misgivings.... Supposing she had indeed been followed by men presenting
the appearance of spies? She would undoubtedly walk
down into Paris. But what would they do? How should
they rejoin her?
Ney asked: "The English are still at war with their
colonists? Or are they their colonists?"
She answered: "No, they are no longer their colonists.
Surely you remember Lafayette. But I do not know
whether they are still at war. I remember dimly to have




212


A Little Less than Gods


heard that they signed a peace on Christmas day of last
year.... But hostilities still continued on Christmas
day of last year. There were some Americans in Lyons
-a banker and his daughter-Coleman by name. They
were pleasant people. They had a relative killed at sea
on Christmas day-or he died on Christmas day. I remember the name of the ships that fought: they were
the President and the Endymion-the Endymion was a
ship the English had taken from us."
"It is amazing, all that you know," the Marshal said.
"You are a gazette that walks... our gazette: the
Princess's and mine!"
"I remember these things more particularly," she said,
"because during the days the Emperor stayed at Lyons
we were thrown much together with the English and
Americans that were there. A young man-but George
Feilding: you know him-saved the life of the American Mr. Coleman's daughter. And indeed mine. Or at
any rate he saved us from brutal handling by a mob.
We should not have talked English in the streets....
But Mr. Coleman, the American, and *his English
brother were grateful. So we saw them often."
She found it intolerable to talk of these things and not
to know whether George Feilding had indeed been arrested. The English Mr. Coleman had been of opinion
-at Lyons, and in Paris too-that George Feilding ran
some risk. The American brother had been certain that
George would be shot by his compatriots and begged
him to take refuge in their estate in America, lauding its
amenities and comforts. The Coleman young girl had
been woefully in love with George Feilding. Tears had




A Little Less than Gods


213


filled her eyes whenever she had looked at him and
heard he was in danger.
The Marshal said with a lowered voice:
"Tell me, now, truly.... Did He... at Malmaison
Napoleon... indeed send me friendly messages.
You know how his dispatches spoke of me. But if he
repented of them... My wife says he spoke with affection. And that he invited me to go with him to the
Americas.... Is that all true? Madame Ney is all for
reconciling differences. He had, she said, some idea of
enterprises there, that we could share in!"
She said that, in very good truth, Madame Ney had
in no way exaggerated and that there had been an unusual warmth of manner attending his Majesty's words.
"And he called me again le plus brave des braves and
said he had misjudged me at Mont St. Jean.... Why,
then... do you not see?"
His manner was animated but became clouded for a
moment again.
"Do you suppose," he lowered his voice to ask, "that
he had heard of my speeches in the Chamber? Against
resistance to the Allies.... Why... I hope Madame
Ney herself has not heard.... It would appear that
I was in the wrong.... But I tell you, dearest Helene, I was infuriated: maddened!... How could my
actions at Mont St. Jean be misinterpreted?... I
fought like one possessed. Five horses-or I do not even
know how many, but they tell me five-were killed beneath me. I was the last man on the battlefield. Long
after nightfall I was laying about me with my sword....
What could I do but think that all was lost? Who




214


A Little Less than Gods


would not have thought that all was lost?... And
was I, after the insults he had showered on me, to bow
my neck again beneath his yoke?... It is true he besought to be allowed to fight as a private soldier...
But who could keep him down? Was it to be thought
of...?"
He stretched out a finger and imploringly touched her
Jiand.
"My dearest Helene," he said huskily, "I beg you
not to misjudge me. I thought all was lost. How could I
accept the figures that his brother Lucien gave to the
Chamber? I cried out that he lied. And lied. And lied!
I admit that clouds of blood obscured my eyes. I am told
that I struck someone... Drouet, I believe, or another that opposed me. But I desired peace madly. I
could not endure that hopeless battles should be fought
on French territory...."
He stopped, panting, and wiped his face repeatedly.
He fidgeted wildly on the bench. Finally he sat looking with intense gloom at the gravel of the path-bending forward.
"Well," he said, "it would appear that I have once
again restored the Bourbons as I did when I went with
Macdonald to negotiate after the treachery of Marmont." He tried to look at her but could not.
'I alone!" he said. "But do not think that because of
that I will now curry favour with the Bourbons and the
contemptible Ultras. I say to you: 'Perish the thought!'
-the very thought!-I acknowledge that I was wrong.... Lucien  Bonaparte's figures were correct...
The case of France was not so desperate!... This




A Little Less than Gods


2I5


battle of Mont St. Jean might have been to France
what the battle of Cannx was to Rome, not what
that of Zama was to Carthage!"... He went on to
pour out figures. By the 27th of June Grouchy, having
driven Thielmann the Prussian nearly to Brussels was at
Laon with thirty-five thousand men, of whom seven
thousand were cavalry. Thirty-five thousand more had
joined him there. Another twenty-five to thirty were on
the march from Paris to him. Rapp would have been
there in ten days with another twenty-five.... There
were one hundred and twenty thousand men: and after
Mont St. Jean the English had not ninety thousand men
in the field. Would they have dared to cross the Somme?
The Austrians and Russians could not have reinforced
with more than thirty thousand men and that not till the
middle of July!
In Paris there were five hundred field-pieces; for its
defence it had thirty-six thousand national guards;
thirty thousand riflemen, six thousand gunners and six
hundred pieces of heavy ordnance in the batteries;
formidable entrenchments were erected on the right bank
of the Seine and those on the left were nearly completed.
Suchet had more than thirty thousand men at Lyons
besides the garrison of the town; the defence of the
fortified places was such as could be relied on, they being
commanded by selected officers and by troops noted for
their fidelity.... He went on and on, his voice attaining to a certain rhythm. He had undoubtedly studied that
lesson day-long and night-long.
"They should have given the command of those forces
to me!" he broke off to exclaim; "I should have evolved




216


A Little Less than Gods


a plan of campaign that would have driven Wellington
and his BlUcher into the North Seal"
Helene's heart moved in her breast with relief. Madame
Ney's black was coming slowly towards them. She held
her right hand up at arm's length, its palm towards them,
for they had started up. She motioned to them: "Sit
down!" and looked several times fearfully behind
her.
"MindI" Ney whispered, "I would not for the world
have you tell my wife what I have been saying to you
-nor to any other soul. You are sympathetic and
secret.... Why, but my wife is sympathetic too.
but I would not have her think that I... betrayed
France.... My power was too great: my eloquence
was overwhelming. But I was hasty.... I loved peace,
liberty, and France too well.... And it appears that
I have given to my beloved France a White Terror I.
So there remains only the Americas! But I have a
scheme! "
Madame Ney approached them.
"Let us hasten to the carriage!" she exclaimed. "I think
nay, I am sure that I am not followed." She had
thought several times that men had followed her so she
had made long detours in the fields towards the faubourg
of St. Michel. But all that countryside was empty nowl
They had gone to see the new sun rise!
Ney had crushed her in an enormous embrace. He cried:
"Pardon me for having left the carriage! It appears
it was dangerous. It appears that there is in truth a
White Terror! But I was overwrought with anxiety on
your account."




A Little Less than Gods


217


With her white face crushed to his shoulder she cried:
"Let us hurry! Let us hurry!"
He pushed her from him and held her, his two great
hands on her shoulders.
"Listen!" he said, his face, all lit up. "I have a
scheme. We go to Rochefort and effect an alliance with
the Em-peror. From there we sail to the Americas. It is
said-dear Helene here says! -that there they have a
ravishing climate; white houses like those of France but
with porticos; cotton-fields; plantations of sugar cane,
slaves!... I have never had a slave. I shall dress mine
yours! -in the Moskwa livery!"
She said: "I beg you to hurry.... I beseech you to
hurry to the carriage!" He held her however and continued:
"You have not heard my scheme. It is this: We go
from here to Rochefort. There we join with him-the
Emperor. With him we sail to the Americas. It appears
that the Americas are always at war with the English.
Whom could they better take as leaders than Bonaparte
and myself!... We will build such a fleet and raise
such a multitude of men that we will sweep the English into France and broom them and the Bourbons all
together into the Mediterranean! What say you to that?"
"But Marshal," she said, "The Emperor will already
have sailed from Rochefort. And such an expedition will
need long preparing. There are too the children to be
considered. I ask, myself, nothing better than to go overseas, and America appears to be truly an earthly paradise.... And you have even no pass. The roads will
be full of soldiery."




218       A  Little Less than Gods
"And since when," he asked, "since when does Marshal Ney, Prince of the Moskwa, Duke of Elchingen,
need a safe-conduct to travel the roads of France and
pass through French soldiery?"
She said: "Come now! Come now! We must debate
all this in the carriage.... You have the pass that
Fouche gave you to travel to the South and East of
Paris. Maybe the Baron de Frejus shall get you another
to travel to the West.... Or if we cannot come to a
port in the West we will find one elsewhere....
He was induced at last to go back to the carriage, but
all the way he talked of his scheme and his plan for the
campaign of England. Helene went with them as far as
the carriage door. Further she would not go for she said
that she must await George Feilding. She begged them
to drive as far as the other carriage, then to take that
and to send this back to her with Schultheiss the faithful Alsatian. So they went.
She walked waveringly over the bright grass, her eyes
blurred with tears; for, once the Neys were safely gone,
her own griefs descended upon her like curtains that
blotted the light of the sun. She saw no alleviation: she
did not believe that George Feilding would come to the
Closerie but there she must wait another hour or more.
That was the safer way.
No, there was no George Feilding in the little inn.
There was no one, and the light shone through the door
that gave onto the orchard in the rear-upon complete
quietude. Looking out from that door she could see, beneath an apple-laden tree, the young hostess with her




A  Little Less than Gods           r219
baby asleep in a bassinet on the grass at her feet and
a grey kitten on her lap-knitting grey wool. Her husband, the tapsters and the serving maids of whom the
establishment employed a great many in the evenings
when the Parisians came to take the air and in spring
to smell the lilacs-all those people, no doubt attracted
by the rejoicing cannon, had gone to see what was to be
seen in the distant city.
Here then were peace, happiness, domesticity-within
sound of the cannon! She imagined the Americas to be like
that-but with a greater elegance! The Americas had a
climate of a halcyon complexion; American residences
and estates were of a splendour of arrangement and appointment such as war-torn France could not be expected
to know. Above all, in the American nights, the moon
shone enormous above light mists, cicadas, called katydids, sang in the treetops and the slaves from their lit-up
cabins in the distance.... And it appeared that you
could get up a homesickness for the American countrysides and modes of life-for the routs, the races, the assemblies, for the light-hearted gallantry of the men and
the beauty and gaiety of the girls and women!-you
could attain to such a homesickness as no denizen of the
poor, mixedly populated, tyrant-ridden and war-racked
countries of the Old World could know.  All that she
had from the Coleman girl.
Here there were domesticity and happiness-but of
the homespun order. The hostess of the Closerie des Lilas
sat on a rush stool, her back -against the trunk of an
apple tree, dressed in a shapeless frock of black percale,
her feet in grey woollen stockings and great sabots..




220       A  Little Less than Gods
There, you would have, not a kitten in your lap, but a
greyhound couched at your side, a beau, not a bassinet at
your feet, silvered sandals with cross-tapes of gold
lace.... So at least Bessie Coleman had made them believe, and her father, the merchant-planter-banker, asserted that in North Carolina the women were surely
spoiled.... Well, till that morning the dream had persisted. It had hardly faded till half an hour ago!
She sank down on a wooden bench that ran along the
passageway between door and door. It was cool with the
slight drafts of the July noon-and shadowed! And from
there she could see not only the hostess but the greensward between the tavern and the entrance to the Little
Luxembourg. That the hostess had had no tidings or note
from George Feilding H6lene knew; for she had been
there an hour ago to ask and the hostess had promised
to bring into the Little Luxembourg any tidings or note
that came. So there she might sit. She was in no case to
play the great and gracious lady to the modest and ingenuous young woman that sat a-knitting or to tap the
baby's cheeks with an elegant finger-nail..
How was it possible then that a whole fabric of life
could fall to pieces and unravel in ten minutes? Almost,
you might say, merely because of the sound of cannon....For it had begun with the sound of cannon. They
had thought that morning when they had first come to
that garden that Louis XVIII was at least at three days'
distance.... But her companion had been able to tell
from the distant sound that the cannon were unshotted.
So it must be salutes that they were firing!
They had expected to have three days or more in which




A Little Less than Gods


221


they could prepare for their voyage-their flight!...
But ah, they had hurried, those Ultra-Loyalists! They
well might! Even for wolves a night cometh. They might
well hasten to flesh their teeth. Her cousin Clermont-St.
Cyr had not many years to live to judge by his palsied,
flushed and distressed condition. Nor his brother, the Marquis! Nor yet her own father who was too decrepit to
leave England but now kept up a monstrous state near
Twickenham on the banks of the Thames. She regarded
it as a sin that she disliked her father, and fought against
it. But even to her Royalist eye her father was pompous,
mean and insupportable. He had begged of George's father and a dozen others; he had driven her mother into a
paralytic seizure from which she had never emerged fully
and had peacocked it about with ruffles and canes till he
made Versailles and the eighteenth century, to the traditions of which he professed to cling, seem one moth-eaten
satin absurdity after the other. Even when they had had
but one salt herring and three potatoes between the three
of them she had been forced after meals to kneel at his
gouty feet, kiss his swollen and icy hands, round which
the ruffles tickled her nose, and thank him for the repast.... Still, one should honour one's parents. No one had
been more thankful than she to escape from her parents'
roof in the little house in Edwardes Square, for the Marquis had made a point of tormenting her by every mean-.ness that was at his disposal in order that her bed-ridden
and beloved mother might be the more effectually tormented. There had been no other way to look at it.
So that no sooner had she been married to Frejus than
she had begged him to use all the influence that he had




222       A  Little Less than Gods
to remove her mother too from the Edwardes Square establishment; and Frejus having put the matter to Squire
Feilding, the Squire had very effectually intervened with
the simple device of threatening to cut off all supplies
from the Marquis if that nobleman did not consent to his
wife's being removed to a middle-class establishment of
some worthy people. There she had had every attention
that they-or indeed Squire Feilding himself-could devise.
Thus Helene had had the saddest of possible childhoods
and the most muted of early girlhoods and joint livesfor indeed the marriage with Frejus had been no marriage; she had fully done her duty by him in adorning his
halls and enabling him to fill them with splendid throngs
of glittering beings and their womanhood. It was true
that he had supported till lately a crowd of her parasitic
relatives and their friends, but it had been by no will of
hers; and indeed latterly-after they had left England for
Genoa-she had persuaded the good-natured man to cut
off all supplies from the St. Cyrs, Perigords, Fleuranges
and the rest. And this had raised the contempt and hatred
that they had never been chary of expressing for her
husband even whilst their wolves' teeth were devouring his
victuals-this deprivation had raised the expression of
their envy and hatred to the most open thing in the world.
They had imagined that, whilst they were now in a position to plunder France under the aegis of Louis XVIII,
they would continue to enjoy the fat pickings of the
Frejus fortune as well, as a sort of agreeable perquisite...And half of her cousin's glee over his paper in the
rue St. Honore had, she had been aware, been due to




a   Little Less than Gods           223
hatred that had now transferred itself to her too. She had
never put herself out to conceal her contempt for them
and her determination to shield her easy-going husband
from their depredations... Now they had come back.




CHAPTER THREE


THEY had come back and they had Frejus in their
power!
But she heard George Feildilng ask if the Baroness de
Frejus were not there-in French. She had not considered
that he had so English an accent! Another voice saidin English-that they must take some refreshment if it
were to be had there. They had ridden for ten hours and
their nags would not take them even into Paris. The
hostess had looked up and said to a standing, invisible
man that Helene was not there.
She was out in the sunlight, leaning back against the
wall of the house; supporting herself against the wall of
the house with hands that seemed desirous of digging into
the brickwork and then desisted
This was intolerable: her weary brain must be flogged
into thinking. Had both those two men-George and her
husband-been arrested there would have been a space in
which to think. Now there was not even Agla6 to consult:
Aglae and her husband were a-galloping in a swaying
chaise. She had been certain George Feilding had been put
under arrest. It was unaccountable.
How could he have ridden for ten hours? He had promised not to leave his apartment in the rue du Bac until
he heard from her. What errand could have taken him so
far from her? A sharp pang went through herI The Colemans with their bread-and-butter daughter were at Dijon.
224




A Little Less than Gods


225... But to go or return from Dijon he would have had
to pass through Montereau. Besides, he was faithful!
But if he were not under arrest she was not at liberty to
think of him. He became the unthinkable! One must
think only of the other man, filling-nearly filling, glooming in-a little cell in the Conciergerie. Or maybe the Abbaye! What did it matter? She had to think of personal
linen, of sheets, of providing napkins with the Frejus
coronet with which the tray bringing in the bottles and
dishes of his repasts should be covered.
She envisaged the tray. Well, the pastry-cook could
provide the tray. Well, now: a bottle of Clos Vougeot for
the Baron de Frejus: a Strasburg pate, the crust gilt:
half a roast fowl. The Baron should have his own silver
hot-water dishes with parcel-gilt coversl
And Monsieur le Baron would need counsel and encouragement. Tenderness too! Well, he took counsel with
no one but Madame herself! Encouragement from none
other!... Tenderness?... well, there was none
other to give it him.
She remembered his moments of discouragement. He
would sit, crouched forward in his chair-a very Achilles
retired to his tent. There had of course been such moments. All men have them constantly, women practically
never since they cannot afford them. She would lean over
him, probing at the secret springs of his melancholy, indicating the more cheerful elements of his case. But now
he must be more discouraged than ever before he had
been. Then...
Then he could not be abandoned at a moment when he
had achieved an act of cool gallantry!... Because




226       A  Little Less than 'Gods
there would not have been another man in ten thousand
who would so quickly have grasped the misunderstanding
of those others. There was no other man who would not
have sprung up and cried: "But you fools, I am the
Baron de Frejus! " and gone free.
You do not in any case betray your husband when he is
in jail. That is not done: that is not thinkable. Not when
he is imprisoned for your Cause. Women in those dayswomen in any day very likely-gave themselves to the
first man that came along and threw the handkerchief.
Not she!... There was perhaps a special cause for that.
She had, in effect, more to give than other women, so she
might well charily select the man to whom she should give
what she had to give!... But was it then to be thinkable that she would commit an action that the lowest of
women would scarce commit? For even the marechales of
France seldom gave themselves to their lovers whilst their
lords were actually on the battlefield. They would await
the army's going into cantonments or the signing of an
armistice.... After all, it would be disagreeable to discover that you had been in your lover's arms whilst your
husband lay out on a field, the prey to crows!
By analogy, this was the same thing. Frejus had entered
on a battle-and if the drunken Ultras had really begun
a White Terror, Frejus was in more danger than most
marshals of France-except perhaps the Prince of the
Moskwa-on the battlefield.... That was the dreadful
thought. It was insupportable! If Frejus was not at that
moment freed on the discovery of error, his head was as
certain to fall as leaves must fall from the trees in autumn.
He was fallen, he was solitary, he was unbefriended by a




A  Little Less than Gods           227
soul and he was of such wealth that all the crows in the
world must fly to the Conciergerie for a share in the
pickings. He was no Marshal of France. Had Michael
Ney been in prison, a hundred thousand voices would have
clamoured for his release, a- hundred thousand swords
would have itched in their scabbards. But this man-this
erring, passionate, clumsy, great child! -had, if you
looked at it coolly, done more to inconvenience the Allied
Enemies than several Neys.... He had thus made
thousands of embittered enemies-but who will befriend
a financier when he is fallen? Then
If they did not exact his life?... What then?...
He must pass the rest of it in jail.... His need of personal linen, Clos Vougeot, foie gras, counsel, companionship, tenderness would become lifelong. A wife, even a wife
in name alone, who has once shown tenderness or looked
out napkins for the trays, cannot then withdraw those
solaces.... Nay, she must tenfold increase her vigilances. She must wait continually beneath the prison walls
for the chance to minister: for her there could be no
nights in a lover's arms!
Leaning back, grasping at the bricks of the wall with
her fingers, she stared wanly at the bright grass. Then the
magic of her lover overwhelmed her.... He was a
green-grass sort of fellow, galloping across turf to meet
aligned and innumerable foes! His deeds of passion and
splendour were not done slinking in the tall rooms of vanished nobles. He stood in the open, splendid and with
backbone erect, bidding Fate aim what bolts she would at
him. His voice was trumpet music; you could no more
resist the brightness of his eyes then that of the sun; when




228


A Little Less than Gods


he smiled your heart turned within you; your limbs
trembled before his pleas; your soul fainted for need of
his arms about you.... What, then, was a poor maiden
who had never known lover to do?
She had stood spellbound, incapable of urgently needed
action, merely to look at his face!
It had been in Lyons, when he had saved their lives.
He had stood a little out from the end wall of a cul-de-sac,
with herself and the little Coleman girl behind him. He
was bestriding an immense fellow with a cracked head; a
mob, bottled between the narrowly parted high housefronts, raising fists to the distant sky and ululating. There
were foul-looking creatures in the culs-de-sac of Lyons as
of Paris; parcels of livid grey rags with livid grey features
that never crept out to see the light save in moments of
disaster and of civil strife. It had been fortunate that the
place being paved there had been no stonesl
They should not have gone to inspect the silk-weavers
in that suburb of Lyons. What was the name of the
suburb? It ran into the hill of the... the Croix-Rousse?
So that they had had their backs against the rock down
which vines ran their tendrils. Vines giving a good wine,
called... she could not remember the name. They
should not have gone; or having gone they should not
have talked English. But little Elizabeth Coleman had
known no French. The pattern of the silk the old weaver
had been at work upon had been such as no little American girl could resist crying out at; scarlet parrots, azure
parrots; scrolls; pomegranates, all on a black ground.
She could see the bright colours before her there
unimaginable labour; the piece taking four years in




A Little Less than Gods


229


the making and destined for the Dey of Algiers. In a
dark room...
When they had emerged there had been a crowd before
the door... growling like hounds. They had cried:
"Filthy English! Betrayers of the Emperor!" Their own
voices had been drowned.
It had been admirable the way in which George had
handled the matter: Gatti di Vivario had told the truth
when he had said that in any danger she would be safe
behind George Feilding's right arm. He naturally had out
his immense sword which made a half-circle round them,
but an immense fellow, his head bound in a handkerchief,
with an immense club had nevertheless advanced out of
the crowd. But he had had no chance to use his club: his
club was lying on the cobbles and in a second the club
was in George's hands and George had handed his sword
to her. It had been difficult to see, it had gone so quick.
He appeared to have brought the flat or the blunt back of
his blade down on the fellow's fore-arm. The fellow had
howled aloud. In the silence that fell upon the crowd
George had said to her: "We do not want to shed any
blood! The Emperor does not wish it!" He was quite
calm and good-natured, smiling a little, his white upper
teeth set lightly on his red lip, gazing before him as if at
landscape whose details he designed to memorize.
The big fellow who had been hurt pushed roaring
back amongst his fellows: a man with a bayonet on an
old musket lunged. His bayonet was pushed aside by the
cudgel that was now George's. She heard George say: "If
you do that again I shall hit you on the head! " The man
lunged with his bayonet again: George hit him on the




230       A  Little Less than Gods
head. The musket fell to the ground; the man cast up
his arms and fell sideways. George strode across him. He
cried out in French:
"If any more desire putting to sleep, I am a great putter
to sleep. Advance! This way, gentlemen! "
The crowd was silent a moment, hearing him cry out
in French. Then she should have spoken: she was upon
the step of the house from which they had emerged; she
could then have harangued the crowd. But she could not.
She was aware that she was so full of desire for this hero
with the bright varnished cheeks, the hardly heaving
chest and the bright eyes. Here was Perseus bestriding the
Dragon. She was filled with the desire that he should cast
her over his shoulder, forge his way through the vanishing
crowd and disappear with her into the Olympus where
demi-gods pursue their amours and their bliss! The fellow upon the ground made a good head for the dragon, the
dragon's tail being the crowd.
The little American girl beside her knees uncovered
her bright little eyes and said:
"You should speak to them! Oh, you should speak to
them!"
It was then too late. The growling had recommenced
because a man had cried out:
"He is nevertheless a filthy Englishman. I have fought
against that uniform!"
George advanced; his cudgel hammered on hands, on
shoulders. A man with one eye-the man who had called
out-was the next to fall. He had attempted to get at
George with a flail, whirling first the beater round his
head.




A  Little Less than 'Gods         231
As they had advanced she had mounted another doorstep. The crowd had again fallen silent to see another of
their leaders on the ground. The little American girl in
her high-breasted print dress had whimpered again:
"Speak to them! You speak to them.... Else they
will kill him... kill him! I should not mind dying but
they must not kill him!"
Helene had not been able to speak: her throat had
been closed. She was aware that she craved to see him
drive that rabble before him unaided. To have aided him
would have been to detract from his glory and his punishing strength..... He made a sudden rush; the crowd ran
from him, he after them. When they came up to him, the
crowd was out in the boulevard, he closing the mouth of
the alley. He said to the little American girl:
"Pull my whistle from my pocket by the cord. Put it to
my lips!"
Bessie Coleman fumbled at the cord that went from his
shoulder to his pocket. She was panting with emotion. A
stone pushed George's shako aside on his head. They had
found some stones in the boulevard. George's arm-the
left one-was evidently powerless at his side. It had been
struck no doubt by a great stone that lay at his feet. If
she, Helene, had tried to extract the whistle she would not
so have fumbled!
He could not blow the whistle without holding it; he
could not drop his cudgel to hold the whistle. It was Bessie
Coleman -who held it to his lips while it fluted and piped
quick notes: "At the double! At the double!"
The crowd drew back further, puzzling at the sound,
round the mouth of the alley, their mouths mostly gaping.




232       A  Little Less than Gods
The sergeant-major of Gatti di Vivario with a corporal
and four files of men came up at the double; the crowd
had melted. They went into the bright sun of the boulevard after the shadow of the alley. It had been Bessie
Coleman who had made a sling for George's arm with the
printed fichu she had round her neck.
She asked herself as she now leant against the wall of
the Closerie des Lilas-what accounted for her impulse to
cruelty? She knew that, though she yearned for him with
every fibre of her body when they were apart-and indeed when they were together 1-yet she had always in his
presence refused herself to him with every species of
cruelty. Yet she had kissed with the fervour of a priest at
altar the spot where his hand had rested on a marble
mantel-shelf in the great salon of the Frejus mansion!
Why, now! Merely because she had heard his voice she
had avoided him! Yet a moment before she had desired
to pillow his mournful head upon her breast!... "Come
rest on my bosom, my own stricken deer!" Beautiful
words of an Irish poet!
Indeed she did not know herself in this connexion.
Girls should be modest and at times take refuge in flight.
But in the great glass of the mirror above the very mantelshelf that her lips had pressed she had once caught the
sight of her face when he had been kneeling at her feet,
clasping her knees with both arms. And her face had had
the queerest expression-of ecstasy, dread, glee, cruelty,
the eyes half closed, the lips rigid. And the whole attitude
one of withdrawal, of forbidding-drawing herself away,
setting one shoulder higher than the other to get a greater




A Little Less than Gods


233


leverage, swaying to one side... Why, it had been as
if something supernatural had peeped out of herself!
But how was it reasonable?... When he had gone she
had cried because she had not given herself to him and
had not promised to give herself to him. That very morning she had resolved on that thing. They were to have
gone away with Agla6 and her Michael, divorce or no
divorce or to await a divorce. She had pictured the
countrysides flashing beside their carriage; she had felt
his breath upon her cheek.
Now she was considering in what words she should
again dismiss him.
There was no doubt that part of her mind was doing
that. Phrases were coming up- "With a husband in
prison..." "Who has the greater need of comfort.. "
"Cannot the young wait, having the strength.." But
she was not one to rehearse speeches at length!
She shuddered, going round the front of the house-end
to see that long blank wall. When Frejus had said to the
general that that would be a good wall against which to
shoot him she had had an extraordinary vision of Frejus,
extended on the ground, his arms spread above his head,
towards her. She had even seen his high, curly black hat
that had fallen to a distance. And the firing squad marching away.
It was absurd. Military executions are not carried out
with such little ceremony, nor in such isolated spots. No
government dare risk that. Nevertheless she shivered, going through the little archway that through the wall gave
access to the orchard.




234


A Little Less than Gods


There were two heavy men-or they appeared heavy
because of their voluminous riding cloaks. Their boots
were dusty, their hats on the backs of their heads, the
hands holding their riding crops depending almost to the
ground. They had before them white wine in a green
bottle. But although they had every appearance of fatigue
they spoke one to the other with harshness and in contradictory tones. One exclaimed:
"Pish, pshaw! I have been master of the Quorn this
many years now and if I do not turn my hunters to grass
of a summer I will eat my own oats my own self!"
The other said: "Aye, and ball them, and blister them,
and crack their feet getting them into hard condition
again, and strain their legs with bending down to crop!"
The first speaker turned his face towards the house and
so gave Helene a view of his profile. He struck the table
with his crop and bawled:
"Hostess! Hostess! The food!"
His face was leaner and browner-but it was Assheton
Smith. Helene said to him before he had looked at her:
"Where is George? Just now he was here!"
Both men started up and removed their hats. The other,
with his silver head, sharp pickax nose, lean, red face
and hard blue eyes was Squire Feilding, George's father.
He said:
"George is not here. George at least is safe. In a cavalry
jail!"
It was George's voice-but when you saw the man it
sounded harsher. His eyes were like stones. Mr. Assheton
Smith said:
"Hush, hush! Old friend!" From that she knew that the




A  Little Less than Gods           235
Squire had, at any rate lately, been furiously angry. He
turned indeed on Assheton Smith and exclaimed:
"There has been enough and to spare of this poppycock. I shall make an end of it!" He was very tall and
spare of flesh. but large-boned enough. The wine that he
had been drinking on an empty stomach had no doubt
flushed his face and clouded his brain. Helene was used to
think of him as a kindly man whom she could cajole frequently into small gifts or permissions. She knew he had
a cruel tongue but upon her he had never used it, though
she had seen him bring tears to George's eyes often
enough with sneers at young follies of his. She remembered how George at fourteen had bought at a fair a
pinchbeck watch with tin seals... His father had driven
him to contemplate suicide!
Well, he could not do it now!... She saw Georgejust as she had earlier seen Frejus-in a cell, leaning on a
table, pondering. An intolerable yearning to comfort him
began to insert itself into her mind. She imagined great,
sooty cross-bars of iron barring a glassless window.
Squire Feilding foamed on-at Mr. Smith, for after the
first glance he had not looked at her, keeping his face as
if furiously averted. Helene said to herself:
"You would think that this at least might have been
spared me!"
"Is it, then, not enough?" the Squire cried. "I arrive in
Paris to find my son jailed for a detestable, meanspirited, mawkish treason. Before Hell I care nothing
about soldiers or soldiering.... But to have my son at
their mercy! Mine! My son!... And what has he to say
for himself! Mumchance he stands between two scarlet



236


A Little Less than Gods


coated oafs. And not a word!... Is it conceivable that
I could have such a son?"
"Why," Mr. Assheton Smith said coolly, "he offered to
aid you to cut the entail.... That was spirited enough
for a boy standing on his stairs with a red-coat above and
another below and you raving on the landing."
Mr. Feilding had as if a seizure of breathlessness; his
chest heaved; he bent his head, swallowed convulsively
and drew through his nostrils several immense breaths.
Mr. Assheton Smith had turned his lean, brown face to
Helene. His eyes expressed concern and compunction.
"I would have spared you this if I could have," he said.
"Madam, do not fear for the young man. He is under my
protection!"
She considered fiercely. Here was another of these
demi-gods, another of these enormous creatures who
wreck worlds-or human lives that in themselves are
whole worlds. No doubt George's body was safe under that
iF aegis; but what about his humiliation, his disillusionment, his disbelief in humanity... his.. his dishonour! But no! No! there was no dishonour! No dishonour! Whom could he not look in the face?-and her
bosom awaited his aching head! Then...
Mr. Feilding shouted at the milor::: "Ask that trollop, that slut, where is the cuckold, her
husband! Great God: is this not enough! Is this not
enough?... Where is the man? He can neither keep his
wife nor be where he should. Did we not send him courriers enough to announce our coming... Does he not
desire our arrival? Did he not ask it?"
Helene said: "Mr. Feilding!" She repeated with fury:




A  Little Less than Gods           237
"Mr. Feilding! Mr Feilding!" for he continued spurting
out words. Her eyes, she knew, sparkled with rage; the
clenching of her hands drew her gloves insupportably
tight. She stamped and stamped.... She exclaimed at
last at Mr. Assheton Smith:
"I have felt gratitude to that man! Now I feel none.... He provided me with a dowry to wed a man thatpoor man-is no manI... Then how do I owe him
gratitude? You know well it was a crime done against me.
I will not be called trollop nor strumpet: I am as pure as
when I came from my mother's womb. Nor shall you call
my husband a cuckold: the poor man is none: nor my
lover a traitor. He is none!" she swallowed painfully but
her brain was full of words: "Let that sot," she said,
"take back his dowry and my husband his ouches and
pearls and cabochons and emeralds, and let that man take
his son'. lands-and I will follow that man's beggared
and calumniated son to the world's end in my shift. It was
Mary Stuart said that: but I, I will do it, I, Helene de
Frejus that will never be that more!"
Mr. Smith said earnestly:
"Don't say that! I beseech-I advise you not to dwell
on..." He added suddenly: "Don't dwell on... on...the nature of your living... with those two men! "
He said: "As yet the Squire has not heard you. He would
I mean   accept the situation  if... if, say, the
worst...
He mopped his brow with a black handkerchief that
had scarlet and green patterns in its silk.
"Before God," he said, "I was never yet in a situation
that made me want for words!"




238       A  Little Less than Go ds
Mr. Feilding was coming out of another convulsion; in
panting for breath he turned his eyes, bloodshot and
fixed on the girl. She then addressed him-for it was he
that she desired to pain.
"Father!" she said. "You call yourself a father and
acquiesce at the first offset with those that would pour
dishonour on your son.... And on me! You who are
acquainted with my sainted, my martyred mother! You
come to me from the country where that saint -lies and
call dishonourable names me who was brought up at her
knee. It is amazing that you dare look me in the
face...." He was indeed, now, leaning back on the
table, his eyes bloodshot and fixed on her as if he saw a
vision-shaken, dishevelled and appalled. "Why," she
said, "if you had a daughter..-. But you have no
daughter. If then you had bastard daughters they might
be what you have called me and lie with whom you
will-your son or others.... It would well befit them! "
Mr. Feilding stretched out his hands, clawing the air,
and swayed, leaning back on the table. He moaned inarticulately like a great beast in agony. Mr. Assheton
Smith turned white under her eyes and said sharply:
"Madam! I beseech you. No more of that!"
"Why," she said to him, "this gentleman's words were
inopportune. I wish no ill to his daughters. But he should
not call me strumpet at the moment when they are both
jailed-my husband and my lover!"
Mr. Feilding said feebly to Mr. Assheton Smith:
"You observe! She said 'my lover'!"
Mr. Smith began: "They have then arrested..




A Little Less than Gods


239


Helene however was talking, a thought compassionately, to that miserable-seeming squire.
"It would appear," she said, "that your worship was
not in a position to hear me when I said lately that
I...?
Mr. Smith interjected with urgency:
"Pocas palabras. Enough said. You will ruin..."
She continued however, remorselessly:
"I do not know what I should call your son, Mr. Feilding, if not my lover-since I love him with all my soul and
so he loves me. Nor do I see why you should call me foul
names. For I am sure that my husband in writing to you
-and I presume you have hastened here at the urging of
a letter from my husband-I am sure that my husband
made no innuendoes against my honour.... So I beg
you to finish this discussion. I am aware that in your country a man is accounted a simpleton or worse who marries
his mistress. That maybe is why I never consented to become your son's mistress. Or I do not know. I was debating upon that with myself when I heard your voice
and thought it was your son's. But your son will be in
that respect no simpleton if he marries me, for in truth I
am no mistress of his...."
"It would kill your mother!" the squire muttered suddenly. "It would kill... Assheton, tell her it would kill
her mother....)
Assheton Smith raised his crop and beat the air hesitatingly.
"I would rather," he said, "infinitely, that we went on
debating on the topic of turning hunters out to grass in




240


A Little Less than Gods


the summer, though you had become plaguily ill-tempered
already over that.... And this is no time..
"It is no time for hunters, in the name of God," Helene
said. "But I am sure it would kill my mother. She is
against divorces. But this would be no divorce, there being
no marriage...
Mr. Assheton Smith suddenly interrupted her.
"Child," he said, "you are talking beside the mark!"
He then addressed the other man with great earnestness.
"Squire," he said, "you and I have not half enough debated this matter to let you settle it with this girl...
The squire mumbled: "More than enough of your talk
of Egypt and the like.... It would kill her mother."
"Why," Mr. Assheton Smith said, "we old fellows have
done harm enough to these young ones. I am not one to
cry over spilt milk. But I cannot conceal from myself
that in my desire for knowledge I have run your son into
a plaguy awkward position. Whatever Wellington may
say-and you heard him! -I will save him from the firing squad. No Duke nor Devil shall say me nay!"
Helene said: "O Heaven! You have seen the Duke of
Wellington!"
"We rode," he answered deferentially, "we rode,
Madam, Hell-for-Leather from the young man's rooms
to the Duke's office in the Tuileries. I had sworn to release the young man instanter. But the Duke would not.
He is a damned, cold, unrelenting ramrod and has a great
case against your... against the young man. I am even
afraid it will come to a trial. But do not be alarmed. What
the Duke will not do shall be done by a greater person



A  Little Less than Gods           24I
age than he. Of that I assure you I " he spoke again to the
Squire:
"So," he said, "I have injured the young man very
sorely in truth-for as we are agreed our country will be
no place for him now, nor in many years-or ever. He
must to the greenwood go: that is sure. And if he consent
to cut the entail he may well and start again in a new
world that no doubt has its agre'ments, or so they say.
And if Madame la Baronne consent to share his exile, the
least I can do, as having injured him, is to beseech you
not to stand in their way; and the least you can do, as
having injured... the other party, is to... I beg you
to consider this!... to leave them in ignorance. I cannot be more plain. Bethink you of the pain you wish to
inflict on these young and exiled things-the pain, the
mortification, the despairl"
The Squire shook his head numbly.
"It would kill the marchioness!" he said.
"There is," Mr. Assheton Smith said, "no essential inconvenience in such marriages if the secret be kept. There
are two cases you know well in your own country and
they have proved agreeable, prosperous and productive
unions. There is a case not a mile from my Quorn kennels
that has all those characteristics. The youngsters I swear
to you ride to hounds on ten-hand ponies like little devils
-the pluckedest of the plucked. So I appeal to your humanity..
The Squire shook and shook his head. Helene exclaimed:
"Mr. Smith, this seems to be enough of talking and




242


A Little Less than Gods


too much. I do not know the meaning of your allocution
though it appears to be benevolent. The fact is however
that neither you nor Squire Feilding have any say in this
matter. Till this moment I was in doubt whether my duty
was towards my husband or my lover. From what you say
of my lover's mournful case, he being fated for exile,
unjust obloquy- what know I?... But this I know.
From this place I go straight to the palace of the Cardinal
Archbishop, and though he be busy he will see me for I
have helped him much with stoles and albs and
frontals.... And that will be the beginning of the end,
for Rome will not refuse justice to a petitioner in my
case.     I shall go there not because of violent haste
or eagerness but so that my lover having news of it at the
earliest moment in his dungeon may know that one faithful being watches beyond its walls!"
The hostess coming round the house-corner with a great
tray of white earthen plates, bread, a great yellow
omelette and knives, Helene saw all these familiar objects
bright with a melting sentiment that she was never again
to know.... But her problem seemed at least settled;
she had judged between the claimants to her cares, and
the sight of the fair-haired hostess, a boy-child clinging
to her apron, gave her new visions of a pleasant forestand-champaign country where, a boy-child at her apron
too, she should stand in her cabin door-they would be
poor, poor-and watch the beloved figure in white with a
great palmetto hat and a bare, manly throat, walk out
from amongst great forest trees and across the glade come
towards solace, union, and utter, utter contentment.




A   Little Less than    Gods        243
Mr. Feilding, looking at her with doomed eyes, said
with extreme slowness:
"Poor fool! The boy...
She heard Assheton Smith give a hoarse cry and saw
him start towards the other.
Mr. Feilding completed slowly:
"The boy is your brother!"
There was no surprise: the thought she was aware had
been for ever at the back of her mind. Nevertheless her
knees gave way beneath her and she fell in blackness to
the ground.




1
I
I
I
10,
Y,
I




PART
III




I




CHAPTER ONE


G EORGE FEILDING paced furiously up and down
a small section of an immense carpet in a great,
mournful room. The great furniture, the bergeres, divans,
day-beds and simple chairs were alike shrouded in drugget; like an immense, a supernaturally gigantic pear made
of grey sheeting, the great lustre depended from the centre
of the ceiling. The great mirrors that went all round the
walls had that cold air of grey-blue steel mirrors have that
for long have reflected neither the master of the house nor
his guests; the white statues of Hebes and Niobes appeared chill and yellowing. The windows gazed on an irregularly shaped courtyard whose naked tree dripped
great gouts of moisture though the rain was over.
He tore furiously at a red-worsted and gold bell-pull
that depended beside the marble of the mantel. On the
right side of the fire-place was a great bust upon a green
marble pedestal: it showed a bull-nosed, great-necked
man, very decollete until the marble ended in the rolls of
a marble blanket; on the left was a bust, not quite so
large and in bronze of a young woman.
Long, long after, a short-skirted, deftly slippered maid,
in black with a black apron, flitted deftly round an opening door and stood holding the handle of blown glass. He
cried out:
"Madame la Baronne... Madame de Frejus. Is she
not returned? This is intolerable."
247




248


A Little Less than Gods


"She stays often," the maid said, "till late, late into the
night with Monsieur le Baron. At the Conciergerie!"
He lugged impetuously from his fob a net purse
that jingled. He poured guinea after guinea into his
palm.
"Listen," he said; "you are at least human, mademoiselle." She was a dark girl, her hair parted in the middle and topped by the small cap and the huge black ribbons that give to the Alsaciennes their proud and graceful
gait. She sighed and her dark eyes were soft.
"I entreat you," the young man said, "I beseech you
as you hope to savour the joys of love: that you will conceal me in a closet or put me in an alcove where Madame
de Frejus shall pass. Bethink yourself..... Calumnies
have driven her to deny me her society... I was lately
a prey to calumnies. But now I am cleared.... Heavens I
But that cannot be the reason! She was a witness to all my
actions that were questioned!"
"I am glad that you do not offer me gold!" the girl
said. "Monsieur's entreaties would move me far more.
Monsieur's entreaties move my heart itself. They would
move a heart of stone. But no emotions at this moment
could induce me to depart from the orders of my beloved mistress!"
"Then you admit," he cried out, "that this infamous
cruelty is commanded by Madame Ney-for you are the
servant of Madame Ney, not of Madame de Frejus. But
what can Madame Aglai6 have against me? It is but a
short time since we were to have crossed the world to go
into a common exile.... And I have worked for the
Prince her husband. Even cloistered up.."




a  Little Less than Go ds          249
He suddenly changed the tone of his entreaty, speaking
much faster.
"See," he cried out. "Here is gold. Good guineas.
She exclaimed with singular passion: "No, no, sir. It is
ungenerous thus to tempt and torture a poor girl."
He answered, however: "Listen child; let me speak. It
is Madame Ney that I beg you to ask to see me, no other.
You have, no orders against that."
She twisted her fingers in her apron. She had no specific
orders against that but merely general orders that her
mistress would see no one on that day save Mr. Assheton
Smith and a banker on business.
"Then run, child, run," he exclaimed; "take the gold;
it shall help you the sooner to marry your sweetheart."
She wavered and then went.
He fumbled for his belt in the pouch of which he had
kept usually letters or documents of great importance.
He swore between his teeth. That accursed habit would
never leave him. He had been a week out of uniform and
was dressed in the fantastically modish bottle-green
clothes that Mr. Assheton Smith had ordered for him
whilst he had been in confinement. Nay, he had not
worn a belt during the four months that that confinement
had lasted. There came into his mind the singular accent
of the old captain of the 42d Highlanders who at the
Court Martial had asked, after the conclusion of the evidence of each of the witnesses:
"Wass Cahptn Feilding weering hiss uniforrm? Did you
efer see him not in hiss uniforrm?"
The old man had asked it so often that it had become a
humorous burden to the days the interminable trial had




250       A  Little Less than Gods
lasted. In effect it had saved, if not George's life, then at
least what small share of his honour he was regarded as
retaining. But only Elizabeth Coleman and her uncle had
noticed that he was then not wearing a belt and had answered:
"Yes, he had a uniform similar to that he now wears,
but with a belt." Elizabeth Coleman had a queer, clear
enunciation as if she took pains to keep all her words
spaced apart. At the trial the English banker-uncle had
been generous to him. In Lyons they had debated very
hotly as to the propriety of his being with the Emperor's
forces. He and the uncle had parted at night frequently
with great anger so that Helene had been depressed, for
she had foreseen the Court Martial. But in his evidence
Mr. Coleman had slurred all that very nicely over, dwelling only on the fact that George had insisted that England
was not at war with France and, even if she had been, he
could not have done otherwise than follow the Napoleonic
expedition, he being a prisoner on parole.
As for Elizabeth Coleman she had delivered a queer,
unstoppable American-rebel oration which the honourable
Court-the colonel, the major, the two elderly captains
and the second lieutenant-had had to listen to in embarrassment, for they only half understood what she said and
did not know how to silence a young female; whilst owing
to dislike for the Bourbons the prosecuting captain found
his' task already so distasteful that he was certainly not
going to check her if the honourable Court was inclined
to listen.
George Feilding even smiled at the memory. The girl's
point of view was, for a democrat, so enthusiastically Im



A  Little Less than Gods           251
perialist, inasmuch as Napoleon was his people's choice
whereas the Allies in the name of Liberty had revived the
long-exploded doctrine of the divine right of kings. She
got that in apropos of George's ignorance of the fact that
his country had declared war-for how could he even
conceive of the possibility that an obese monster could be
inflicted on a people of whose madly enthusiastic loyalty
to their Emperor he had evidence every day? That was
unthinkable!
These Christian kings, he remembered her saying, did
not propose to kill Bonaparte himself, nor did they in so
many words offer a reward for his head, dead or alive;
they were like the Quaker who would not kill his dog but
only give him a bad name. He accordingly cried "Mad
dog!" so that the first man it met killed it. This, coming
after the enthusiastic panegyric on George's valour in saving her and Hellene from the mob, and being uttered with
tears in her eyes and, indeed, between sobs, had seemed
so curious an illustration that the honourable court had
dissolved in laughter and relief.
The truth is that the whole affair had been extremely
distasteful to the Court. The war was by then sufficiently
long over, the actions of the Royalists, the wholesale arrests and murders, the assassination of Marshal Brune,
the arrest of Ney-the whole dreary and ignoble process
of the White Terror, disinclined even the senior officers
for a trial that seemed much of a type with the others.
The Court Martial that was to try Ney had not then yet
declared itself incompetent, but it was said that Massena,
and even Auguereau, had so audibly, if in private, expressed their distaste at their occupation that there could




252


A Little Less than Gods


be no doubt as to the results of the trial. And although
Feilding was not Ney, the colonel of his regiment had
spoken very generously of the gallantry of his behaviour
in the Peninsular, the young girl had eulogized his courage
in the blind alley at Lyons; his handing his sword to
Heletne and using only a cudgel as an arm had given a
very favourable impression both of his prudence and
humanity; and above all his success in the duel with the
chief fencing-master-inspector of the Imperial Army made
him appear no mean soldier for a youngster. That last
was a feat that no other man could lay to his credit. So
that if he was not le beau sabreur himself he could be
called no mean one, and it was attested by no less persons
than Mr. Assheton Smith, the greatest connoisseur of
duelling in the world-and by the fencing master himself.
So that, but for the testimony of General Gorsin of
Antibes and a couple of elderly Englishmen as to
George's utterances at Cannes in the first flush of
Napoleonic triumph, and but most of all for the imprudent eloquence of George's defender, a barrister whom
Mr. Assheton Smith had brought over from London, and
who addressed and bullied the Court and made attacks on
the Duke of Wellington and his staff with the vulgar
fervour of an Old Bailey criminal practitioner, the case
might have been over very much sooner.
The want of generosity of the Duke of Wellington in
refusing under a very shabby pretext to plead for the
release of Ney, and the extreme severity of the nature of
the confinement that he personally had ordered for Feilding, had already prejudiced the officers who made up the
Court a little in George's favour. For it was absurd to




A  Little Less than Gods           253
imagine that George, in the custody of officers of unspotted honour, could foment a plot amongst the subjects
of the Bourbons, and although the Ultras amongst the
Royalists actually had requested that George should be
treated with special rigours of confinement, it was carrying
subserviency to the divine right of the obese incumbent
of the French throne more than a little too far to allow
these singularly odious foreigners a voice in the treatment
of themselves, His Majesty's Officers. That was one thing
-but to allow an insolent fellow in a wig and gown to cast
odium from his odiously gaping, almost radical mouth
over the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief was carrying matters a little too far the other way. So that the comments from time to time uttered by one or other elderly
member of the Court were at times singularly bitter and
aged and disapproving of the counsel. That fellow was
again and again hauled up for attempting directly to
browbeat witnesses in cross-examination, whereas in a
Court Martial all questions to witnesses must be putthrough the mouth of one or other member of the honourable Court. Indeed, during the cross-examination of General Gorsin, at the end of an unseemly quarrel with the
presiding Colonel, the barrister, Sergeant Coffin, had violently cast off his wig and gown and had left the court.
It had fallen to George to cross-examine the Generaland he did it with death in his heart. The memory of that
dawn at Antibes came heavy over him with every glance
at the General's hard blue eyes. He remembered himself
on his horse, beneath the pines, the Mediterranean lapping on the sands close by; the bivouac fires of the little
force and the tremendous glory of the little square man in




254       A  Little Less than Gods
the white breeches and the green coat! And where was
it all gone, and where was he? The very words of his
mouth came back to him from the lips of that grim soldier: he could not allege that there was any exaggeration
or even any added colouring. The General repeated the
phrases in French and then made a halting translation
into English, the Highland captain prompting him.
George had said: " 'L'Empereur dont vous, vous-meme
avez porte les couleurs!"' General Gorsin would report
slowly as the words came back to his mind that George
had asked him if he could blame him for wishing well to
the Emperor whose cockade the general himself had worn.
But, in spite of his depression, he was not going to lose
any ground that he could keep and, rather hoping against
hope, he asked the General whether he had not said that
he was under parole to Napoleon. He could not then remember to have said it but he hoped he had. The General
however said that he had said nothing of the sort, nor anything like it.
The Colonel President, a white-moustached Fusilier
with a very old and dented shako, asked the general what
Captain Feilding's air had been: did he appear dejected?
Did he appear as if he were acting under the coercion of
the ex-Emperor?
The general said that that was a matter in which he
could not judge. And when he was asked if he thought
George's motive was to persuade him, General Gorsin, to
join the ranks of Napoleon's force, he answered:
"Monsieur le Colonel, je prefere ne pas attribuer..
He preferred not to attribute motives when he could report words with exactitude. The Captain had upbraided




A  Little Less than Gods           255
him with excitement for closing his gates to the exEmperor's detail, for the arrest of that detail and for
wearing the white cockade of the reigning house. The
honourable Court must judge of the motives that lay behind those words. He also added that George had spoken
no word that could be construed as expressing disloyalty
or a desire for disaster to his own country. He had undoubtedly uttered treason to King Louis XVIII.
"So that here again," a major whose name George did
not know exclaimed sourly-he was a poor-looking blond
man of forty or so-"here again we are doing the dirty
work of others!"
George heard himself suddenly exclaim with passion:
"I ask the indulgence of the honourable Court. I have a
right to the indulgence of the honourable Court and to its
advice. I wish to protest now that it was against my
wishes that my counsel pleaded coercion by the Emperor
or any of his staff. I should esteem myself the most miserable of curs if any coercion could make me pursue any
course that my reason or enthusiasm did not suggest. I
claim again the honourable Court's indulgence as a man
whose trials have been very considerable and who is called
now with no preparation or forethought to defend himself."
The Highland captain said: "Why, Captain Feilding, if
you wish to consider your course we can adjourn." The
presiding colonel: "You may be sure that we will allow
you, in the circumstances, all the latitude that is possible
to us-and the latitude allowed to a prisoner is very considerable."
George said: "Sir, I am fairly well acquainted with the




256       A  Little Less than Gods
procedure of court martial and I think I can conduct my
case within those limits. What I beg of the honourable
Court is its indulgence in case I betray such emotion as
may seem disrespect to the.honourable Court." He asked
the honourable Court to consider that he had been confined for five months without access to the outside world,
the fellow-officers allotted to guard him being forbidden to
converse with him, with no right to communicate with his
friends or to receive their communications, his counsel
even forbidden access to him on the plea that since, at
vastly.infrequent intervals, Mr. Assheton Smith had been
permitted to see him as Prisoner's Friend, no other defender could replace him.
"This," the presiding colonel said, "is very unfortunate,
but not germane to the case. We have no control over the
Provost Marshal's or your regiment's regulation for the
control of your person, unless indeed you are putting in a
plea of mitigation of sentence: but this is not, as you may
be aware, the moment for that."
"God forbid that I should put in a plea for mitigation
of sentence," George exclaimed hotly. "As I have made
my bed so I must lie in it. I am however trying to point
out to the honourable Court that I wish to pursue a line
of defence different from that taken by the gentleman who
has left the Court. And I may add that almost the most
exquisite tortures that I have had to suffer came from the
necessity to sit silent whilst that person mangled both my
case, my reputation and my feelings."
The Court expressed its willingness to allow him to
make a speech outlining his new case and to reexamine
the witnesses, but he said that he was in no state of mind




A Little Less than Gods


257


to take a long course. He cavilled at none, or very little of
the evidence given: he was ready to rest his case on that.
The prosecuting captain, also a Blackwatchman, with
a black moustache and the resentful eyes of the Gael-a
magnificent fellow with his great, dark kilt, huge knees
and silver finery, said eagerly to the president at that:
"If Captain Feilding will assert inability to plead
through insanity I will call a doctor, have him examined
and at once abandon the case... I suggest earnestly to
Captain Feilding that he pursue that course!"
"By God, that I will not," George called out, "there lies
my sword on the table before you. I will abide the issue
whether the hilt or the point be towards me when the deliberation of the honourable Court is finished!"
Yet his nervous agitation was so great that immediately
afterwards he apologized almost pitifully to the Court for
having introduced the sacred name. He desperately desired his acquittal. It would appear that the Court did
too, for a letter being brought in to the President and
passed to the other officers, after a consultation the President said-he had a husky, rather sweet old voice and his
blue eyes an aspect of being faded:
"Sergeant Coffin, your late defender sends me notice
that he will report to the Lord Chancellor and the Judge
Advocate General on irregularities in our procedure. If
you wish it we will adjourn until that issue is settled. It
would of course be tantamount to a verdict of acquittal if
either of those authorities found that we had been remiss
in our duties."
George saiid-and his voice spoke for him almost without following his thoughts:




258


A Little Less than Gods


"Sir, I desire your judgment on my honour for my
own instruction;. and I demand your acquittal if I may
have it, for the sake of one-of those-who are dearer
to me than life. But if the indictment were fuller of flaws
than it contains words or if your procedure were more injurious than that of Judge Jeffreys after Sedgemoor, upon
my life I would take advantage neither of the one nor the
other to procure my acquittal. So I propose to do no more
than, after Captain Middleton has made his speech in
prosecution, to make my own speech on the evidence and
leave it at that."
He imagined that by that means he would have at
least a half hour's rest whilst the Highlander spoke and
then-if he were condemned to be shot-Helene at least
would be allowed access to him in his cell, or if he were
acquitted, within an hour he would be in her arms. His
mind was completely occupied by her; his eyes seemed to
see none other. He was scarcely conscious of the room in
which he stood, but for the fact that he had the old officers and the young fair boy who was there for instruction before him and at his back a crowd, whose faces he
had looked at but once to see if she might be among them.
He knew that he was in a room of a mairie close to the
gates of the cavalry barracks where he had been confined,
that there were round-topped windows on each side of its
length and that behind the back of the court had been a
huge portrait of Louis XVIII till the judge had ordered
it to be taken away. and the royal arms of England on a
flag suspended in its place. So there the leopards marched
and the lion ramped-the only colour in the room, save
for the uniforms of the officers and the blue coat of Mr.




A  Little Less than Gods           259
Assheton Smith, who had been accorded the politeness of
a chair to the right of the court's table. Either because he
disdained the Court's procedure or was certain that fear
of the Duke of Wellington's displeasure would assure a
conviction-or else because he was satisfied with the turn
things had taken-Mr. Smith had addressed no word to
any soul all that afternoon, but sat, leaning back, his long
white strapped trousers very prominent, taking snuff from
time to time with a high air from a box of blue enamel.
His hat, which stood on the floor beside his chair, was
much more conical than was then usual and its ribbon
was decorated with a great steel buckle-a mode that he
was then trying to introduce.
The young Highlander however gave no promise of
time for recovery to George Feilding. He said that he
proposed to make no speech-or next to none-either
then or in reply to Captain Feilding unless he raised new
points not yet traversed. The evidence was before the
honourable Court: he had laid before them all that he
could discover whether unfavourable or favourable to the
cause of the accused officer. With regard to the accusation of desertion, that charge could hardly lie in face of
the evidence repeatedly elicited by Captain Campbell of
the 42d. That pointed to the fact that Captain Feilding
had habitually worn and appeared always whether in
public or in private in the uniform of his regiment, and by
the King's Regulations and the laws of war the wearing
of uniform even though in actual absence from his unit
was held, if there were no other evidence of intention to
be permanently absent, to count as evidence- of nonintention to desert on the part of those wearing the uni



260


A Little Less than Gods


form of His Majesty's Forces. Moreover it was a matter
of common knowledge that all usual roads between this
country and Great Britain had been stopped by the month
of May and George Feilding had been granted a year's
leave of absence from the month of May of the year before to the same month last past. In addition there was
strong evidence that Captain Feilding had been detained
by his parole to the late usurper of the throne of France
and the fact that it was a usurper that exacted that parole
did not absolve a man of honour from its observation, nor
did it render it incumbent on an officer to refuse his
parole and insist on incarceration.
As to the charge of comforting the King's enemies
Captain Middleton proposed to say nothing. The evidence
was before the honourable court who had perspicacity
sufficient to judge it at least as well as himself. Evidence
that Captain Feilding had in Paris itself done, said or attempted anything against his king or his dominions after
Great Britain had formally declared war was extremely
small and would, he imagined, disappear altogether if...
George exclaimed: "If you refer to the evidence of
that infamous informer, the Viscount Clermont-St. CyrBrion
"Captain Feilding may calm himself," the Highlander
remarked to the President.
"In common humanity," George said, "I should at
least be allowed to send a messenger to the house of a
witness I have not been allowed to approach and whom
my friends have been unable to discover. Madame de
Frejus knows my every thought and the most intimate
secrets of my heart..."




A Little Less than Gods


26i


"Why, you may spare yourself the trouble," the Highlander exclaimed. "I hold here the evidence, taken on
commission, of a witness who swears that you..." He
coughed, stuttered and apologized to the honourable
Court for addressing the accused officer instead of themselves.
Leaning forward in his chair, for his legs he could not
trust, George Feilding cried out:
"In the name of God, Middleton, is it Helene de
Frejus! "
The President raised his head but did not speak: the
prosecutor nodded his head over his paper. The evidence,
he read, taken on commission at-but he was not at
liberty to name the place-of Madame Helene Sophie
Henrietta Georgina, Baronne de Frejus.
George cried out: "In the name of God, Middleton,
give me the address. If you value my life, if you value my
reason-as an old friend..
The President said: "Captain Feilding, you must be
aware that this is not the moment. If the evidence taken
on commission is insufficient in the eyes of the Court to
substantiate any testimony that you wish to give yourself..
George stood up and holding waveringly to the back of
his chair cried:
"Sir, it is the address-it is the address that I desire.    Am I not a sufficiently broken man?"
He was aware of a buzz of voices from behind him;
the tall Highlander suddenly made a most extraordinary
grimace and dropped his hands with a gesture of despair.
The old, poor major with the unknown name beckoned




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A Little Less than Gods


the Highlander to him and whispered into his large ear,
then to the President; the President spoke to Mr. Assheton Smith, who shrugged his shoulders and eventually
nodded. The President spoke to the Highlander. George
was aware that he swayed on his feet like a pendulum
that had been planted in the earth. Then the Highlander
was bending over him.
"Man! Man!" he heard through a sort of darkness
such as might be made by a cloud of bees, "you may be in
the lady's arms in half an hour if ye will but let me finish
my readings." Extraordinary pieces of information existed
in that haze. Frejus was in the Conciergerie; the evidence
of Helene had been taken in the same place for convenience because the evidence of the Baron too was
needed to prove that Clermont-St. Cyr-Brion had never
been in the Baron's house so that the Viscount could
never there have heard-as he had sworn two days before-George Feilding speaking treason against his country to Helene. That fact, allowing for the detestation that
the Court felt for all the former emigres, would have been
sufficient to save George's neck.
But George was never able to differentiate in his own
mind what the Highlander told him from what he gave
in evidence. The world suddenly built itself up anew
around him, but how it came to him he did not know.
Frejus was in prison: Marshal Ney was in prison; Marshal Brune had been assassinated by a mob; Labedoyere
was in prison; Count Bertrand and Drouet proscribed;
Sir Robert Wilson had aided the escape of one of
the Marshals and showed him at the Westminster Election with great applause: Middleton could not remember




A  Little Less than Gods           263
that Marshal's name-or Feilding could not remember.
The haze deepened over George. His ears buzzed, his
eyes were at times obscured by yellow flames; he hardly
knew what he was doing: certainly when a week later he
was in Madame Agla&'s salon he could remember nothing
-or so little. There had been talking. Someone he did not
know held a glass to his teeth. Brandy burned him inside.
He was on his feet-talking!
Oddly enough it was Marshal Ney's estate between
Frejus and Cannes that was in his mind. Because, no
doubt, when he had seen it beside the Emperor-the
long white house, the avenue, the women and children, the
old man with crutches, the blossoms, the tranquillity and
the profusion-he had been thinking not only of the
greatness of the work Napoleon claimed to have done for
France but also of the bliss that it would be to live there
with his Helene. He had imagined her in the white mas,
in a yellow gingham dress, very high in the waist, with
cross-strapped sandals and a great palmetto hat, like
a frail, tied under the chin with pink ribbons-in the
mas, looking out of the window at the avenue that the
breeze tossed and the Mediterranean. Her brown eyes
light, smiling; her arms a little stretched towards him.
The mas had so much impressed him, he had so often
thought of her there, that she seemed now to come towards him, her arms still a little outstretched and still
faintly smiling. In half an hour he was to be in those
arms: the Highlander, his old friend Middleton who had
held to his stirrup in some charge in some Spanish valley... Fuentes... Ciudad.. he could not remember the name; the Highlander, then, had said that


l




264       A  Little Less than Gods
in half an hour he would be within those arms if he did not
interrupt him, Middleton... not a Highland name that
-Lowland. Middleton's mother had been a Macgregor
though!
He was speaking. He was speaking all the while about
the agriculture of Napoleon: about the coercion it exercised over the minds of the young. He said something
like: "The destruction of his wars was terrible to think
of, but the great body of his people at home were happy
and content, in peace and plenty," or: "He did more to
assist the agriculture of France and to promote a hometrade an hundred times more important than France had
ever had, in five years, though so deeply engaged in war,
than the Bourbons had done in five centuries," or: "the
people were relieved from the monstrous impositions and
horrible oppressions of the ancient nobility and Papist
clergy!"
Someone said: "Oh, well, but we have our own Farmer
George and liberty."
Someone else said: "You must not say 'the Emperor'
here; you must say 'Bonaparte' or the 'late Emperor"'but kindly enough!
It was a confused affair: he had a sense that he had
been listened to kindly and tolerantly. He had called out
then or sometime:
"They have assassinated him then! At last they have
assassinated him as they tried to in the island!" He did
not catch any retort, but he was aware that, under that
lash, he had seemed to start forward, like a hunter, into
a new flight of eloquence.
It had been a muddled affair; even as he furiously




A Little Less than Gods


265


paced Madame Ney's carpet ten days later fragments of
what he had then said stuck about in his mind like shreds
and rags of an old poster rotting on a wall. Even above
the druggets, the mirrors, the busts and the windows of
that torture chamber, images of that moment in the trial
superimposed themselves in his mind! He paced and
paced, awaiting the return of the maid or the coming of
Madame Aglai,, but he heard his voice say:
"Coercion! I am not ashamed of the coercion that the
Emperor imposed upon me-the coercion of his greatness
in the achievements of peace rather than in the feats of
war! Who being young and standing before him could but
feel a generous enthusiasm? What other coercion would
Napoleon use upon a prisoner? But who is there-who
is there in this honourable Court that does not now feel
that generosity towards him whose fame has spread to
the farthest jungles and savannahs of the New World!"
He had begun to talk of Louisiana and North Carolina..
He knew that he had meant to talk about Elizabeth
Coleman as a sort of specimen of how the young were inspired by Napoleon. The Court had heard her: nay he
had meant to say that his passages as to home-trade and
the oppressions of the Papist clergy had been citations
from her talk in Lyons. The young woman had much
impressed Helene with her eloquence and precocityHelene herself had been less eloquent; even in that blaze
of triumph when in their thousands adherents were flocking to the eagles she had been anxious-afraid of the
finances.... But she had always been afraid of
finances. Even when, later, the Duke de Gaeta reported




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Ad Little Less than Gods


how the treasury bulged, or when the Emperor would
come back from a parade with hundreds of thousands of
francs that had been thrown into his carriage by enthusiasts I
She had even, later, been afraid for the life of her
husband at times, remembering the part that he had
played in those same financings!
But he had meant to tell the honourable Court that
there was a specimen of how the glory of Napoleon inspired three young people in a Lyons hotel-Helene, the
young woman from North Carolina, and himself. How
then, though he swore that he was as interested for the
honour and prosperity of his country as any man there,
how could he escape thinking that his country would
respect the motives of the great Adventurer and leave him
in peace to pursue his beneficent destiny?... Something like that!
But it was the brandy they had forced into his mouth
that had inspired that collocation of thoughts; and
brandy, though it inspire you to eloquence, will yet make
you leave singular lacunae in your reasonings. It will also
make you courageous enough to hazard talking about the
young women of your acquaintance as instances of your
frame of mind. So he never knew whether he had pursued
his train of reasoning or not.
For at some moment he began to be aware of a great
buzz of voices that was going on behind his back-and
then that he had seen the members of the honourable
Court filing out behind the table, some seconds before
the Presiding Colonel at their head, going behind a screen.
Someone then told him that the Court had retired to de



A  Little Less than Gods           267
liberate on its verdict and he himself was taken behind another screen into a gaunt, long corridor where for a time,
on the arm of Mr. Assheton Smith, with a captain of his
regiment behind him and scarlet sentries at each of the
three issues, he had paced unsteadily up and down.
That was the last that he remembered until he found
himself in Mr. Smith's mansion in the rue St. Honore,
next the hotel Monchelu and the Elysee that was guarded
by Russian sentries.




CHAPTER TWO


T HE Colonel-Count dei Gatti di Vivario, once of the
Fourth Cavalry Regiment that was till lately stationed at Tarascon on the Rhone but was this year disbanded-Felice Gatti, then, sat in a deep berge're, in a
high, grey-panelled and mournful room, a lady in black
sewing on each side of him. His varnished and oiled right
wooden leg stuck out before him; his black hair was vivid
with silver streaks: his empty left-arm sleeve was pinned
to the breast of his old blue tunic where pale stitching
marks were evidence that the ribbons of orders had been
removed. His title and most of his orders except his battle
decorations having been conferred on him by the Emperor
at Elba or since, were not recognized by the authorities
in power, so that when they had occasion to address him
officially they used the appellation ex-Colonel Inspector
of Fencing-Masters-of-Cavalry Felice Gatti, a style that
pleased his sardonic mood. For he said that it was humorous indeed to make one who had served France for
thirty years on the field into a one-legged, one-armed, oneeyed athlete as if they who ruled the state had wished to
stamp him with their own image! The pallor of his face
was enhanced by the black silk patch that covered his left
eye-hole; the crook of his vine-stock walking stick was
already much polished by the attrition of his right palm.
His features had expressions by turns resigned, sardonic,
268




A Little Less than Gods


269


jocular or resentful. His black moustache, from his constantly twisting it with one hand, stuck out aggressively
on the right of his lips and drooped on the left.
"Yes," he said-it was the tenth of November- "they
were monstrously civil to me. If I had been Ajax himself
they could not have been more civil. But fine words do not
provide the capital for founding cafes; though I will say
this: when he heard that I was desirous of founding a
cafe for the dispensing of fine wines and liquors of my
island in the shop in the front wall of Madame Aglae's
courtyard, General Villatte declared that he would order
his servants to patronize my establishment once it was
started, since he lives next door but one from here; and
General Chaparede applauded the idea... Massena
asked to be remembered by you, Madame Aglae.... He
is very aged and rickety, that poor Massena. Who would
have thought he was once as gallant a figure as myself?"
"It is an outrage," Madame Ney said, "that you who
performed the bravest deed on that atrocious field....
"Why, there were many bravest deeds performed
there," he answered; "there was Leocade who rode alone
straight into their infantry; whereas I, I had only an idea
and carried it out.... But I ask myself whether I
would have done it if I had known the world into which
were coming I and the men they are kind enough to say I
saved-if I had known what that world would be! "
Helene sighed deeply on the other side of him from
Madame Ney. Both these women were habited in black,
had set faces and sewed unceasingly at black-grey garments. The workers of the Faubourg St. Antoine were near
starving-point, all public works having been stopped on




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the access of the present king and all trades and handiworks being nearly at a standstill because of distractions
in public opinion.
"Who," she said, "of us would have survived Elba could
we have known! "
"Madame Helene," Gatti answered, "you are a young
and beautiful woman with all your life before you....
But for me, it is a good thing that the learned Warenovius,
Encyclopaedist and Philosopher, exiled himself to Corte in
my youth and took me for his errand boy and amanuensis.
He was not only a philosopher but philosophic. If I, desiring to spare his purse, bought for him in the market
a chicken that when stewed proved insupportably tough
or finocchio that refused to be stewed at all he would
gnaw a crust of bread and rejoice that his dog profited.
But without that example in my youth, and the taking of
his lucubrations from dictation since his hands were too
gouty to write, I do not know how I could today support
the gloom of my existence....
"You have friends, you have admirers, you are regarded as a hero..." Madame said; "where would you
find better friends than Helene and me?"
"Madame Aglae," he answered grimly, "it is my misfortune that I have friends for all my friends are unfortunate and their misfortunes are my own. For myself
I could live tolerably but how can I live tolerably or at
all when your husband is in prison, Madame Helene's
husband in prison, the husband of my life-long friend
Madame Trecocci paralysed by a shot near the spine, so
that he and she starve and I can do nothing to aid them.
And so with hundreds, all my friends.... For myself




A  Little Less than Gods           271
I am well enough. If one goes in amongst guns that an
enemy has already seized, one must expect to lose an eye,
an arm, a leg or so. They have at least left me my moustachios; and if one's party in a war loses its battle one
must expect to be impoverished, to lose one's pension, to
be deprived of one's titles-and they have hitherto left
me at least my head. With a head and moustachios one
may very tolerably keep a cafe in which to dispense
Malvoisie, Talana and eau de vie de Corse.... But my
friends... my friends... how shall they drag out
their years?"
"They shall at least release the Marshal, now... in a
day or two," Madame said. "They can never keep him
after the Court has declared its incompetence to try him.
And the Baron de Frejus is certainly saved after the testimony of the Duc de Gaeta. For myself, therefore, the
load of your anxiety which I recognize and love may disappear, and for Helene it may be very much lightened."
He pushed himself deeper into his deep broad chair
and, twirling the right half of his moustache, looked
gloomily ruminating before him.
"Surely," Madame Ney said, "they cannot in decency
or even constitutionally detain Michael longer than for a
few formalities!"
He said: "Yes, yes! a few formalities!" with a feverish
eagerness. "I am astonished that he is not here now!I"
The maid with her great Alsatian ribbons came reluctantly into the room and stood before Madame Aglae. She
said that the English young gentleman in the salon desired
earnestly to speak with Madame Ney; she begged to say




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that it seemed to be desirable, if the Prinzessin thought
fit, to see the English young gentleman. He appeared distracted and she herself, Elsa, the maid, did not know how
to deal with him. Helene suddenly covered her face with
her hands and between her fingers exclaimed:
"Go! Go!-... Dearest Aglae... Dearest, dearest
Aglae.... Be gentle! Be kind! " Nevertheless, when the
tall figure of her friend was at the open door she exclaimed: "But remorseless!... No hope... give no
hope-..
She was a little concealed from the Colonel by the wing
of his chair, so, though tears were wet on the face that she
hid from him, she said:
"Good Colonel Felice... dear good Colonel Felice... I ask you... I ask you earnestly.... You
have never told me what you did-what marvellous valorous feat you did... in the fatal battle.... You will
explain to me how an idea... you said an idea.
She stopped and leaned back panting in her chair, her
eyes closed. "Aglae knows," she said. "Oh tell me..
Talk, talk! I beseech you! I dare not sit and think!"
He continued to look straight before him, his face convulsing itself a great deal.
"You could find a greater, a better distraction," he
said, "than an old tale that is mostly nonsense and common report.... It was an idea... an idea.... You
know we had lost the guns.... We lost the battle when
we lost the guns and the English square was behind
them.... Or it may not have been a square, though they
said it was. For myself I saw only the one accursed side
of it. But they are inaccurate in battle.... You have




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273


never been in battle. There is a great deal of noise; cannon
fire; the whistle of bullets; the explosion of bombs, obuses
-one should perhaps say obi-grenades. The subtle
neigh of your horse relatively near your ear. A singular,
exciting sound. He says to you: 'There may be mares
there that afterwards shall belong to me. There may be
stallions. Master and God, you will see to it that it is a
good combat!'... And shouts! Demoniac shouts! And
a sense of haste.... Ah, you might lose your head.
at times you do....
They had charged five-seven times. He did not know.
Ney's cavalry. Always they got through the first line of
the English, kneeling with bayonets or firing....
Through them they would go; but the second line they
never penetrated. The lost French guns stood between the
first and second lines. They pointed mostly at the English
naturally. But by the third or fourth charge three or four
of those guns were turned round.
"They fired at us retreating, the devilsI" he said, "Ah,
there were empty saddlesI They fired I think canister! "
It might have been at the sixth charge-at any rate it
was just after the Marshal had taken Kellermann's
cavalry from the reserve-and that was said to have lost
the battle! Perhaps it did.... At any rate when they
were mixed in with Kellermann's troopers and retreating
-running away I-in a terribly solid body, the thought
had come to him that if the British fired their cannon into
that mass the slaughter would be unparalleled.... Ney
himself had had four horses out of the seven he lost killed
under him by that method. He, Gatti, had seen Ney down
twice; watching him once whilst his own horse went down




274


A Little Less than Gods


by the same method. So he had had the idea as they rode
away from the sixth attack-or the fifth or fourth, whichever it was-that those guns must be stopped. That was
all. He had been raving and shouting to his men to come
back. It had been then that Leocade, at the same task,
had ridden alone straight upon the British bayonets. But
he, Gatti, had not been so foolhardy as that. You can be
singularly calm in your for interieur though outwardly
raving at your men. And why should he, Gatti, not be
calm. Hitherto he had never been so much as scratched
in say twenty engagements. He had as it were strolled
about in hailstorms of bullets and had even meditated very
successfully. They made up to him in generous measure
immediately afterwards for not yet having wounded him,
but at the moment all he had had to do had been to reflect
that those guns were probably very scantily manned. They
had no artillery there: at any rate he had seen none. The
fire of the second British line had slackened since the
body of the French cavalry was already through the first,
he himself and the guns being between the two lines, he
with his back naturally to the guns and the British. So he
had wheeled his horse quite deliberately and had seen sure
enough as he galloped a little towards the flank that that
second line had not even re-loaded but were waiting for
the refreshments that were being brought to them. Ah,
those fortunate, fat and pampered British! They were
said by the greatest military authority to be matchless in
a pitched battle but relatively useless in skirmishes and
that was true enough: that will surely be the case if you
feed up your troops so that to run at all-even to run
away-must be a distasteful exertion.




A  Little Less than Gods           275
So there they were, a disordered scarlet huddle; some
were even taking off their bearskins, their muskets,
bayonets-fixed, between their knees. Red-faced men!
And sure enough two or three officers and a few men
were running out towards the French guns; some hauling
the guns round; others clumsy with tompions and sponges;
others opening the ammunition boxes.
Well, her ha'd got-galloping along the line between
line and guns-one young officer as he ran towards a gun
-nearly severing his head from his neck. He had got
another out of two that were training and about to fire the
next gun; another out of three at the next. There were
then three unmanned guns and it might be twenty yards
to the next, with such a heap of dead and horses on the
ground that he could not get his horse over them but
almost brushed the British lines to get round. It annoys a
horse, he said, to have too frequently to leap masses of
dead, especially of their own species.
It had been dead silent along the British lines till then,
in the sunlight, and he had been able to hear the jingle
of his own accoutrements-a friendly sound that he
should never hear again! They are slow thinkers, the
British, and naturally it is difficult for a sharpshooter to
hit a galloping horseman before he has his wits about him
or his Brown Bess loaded, and they could not fire volleys
for fear of hitting their own men at the guns. So he had
galloped across before their faces, wondering goodhumouredly enough when they would begin to fire and a
little scornful of their too well-fed slowness.
But before he got to the next gun there were poppings
from a section of the line and before he was at the gun




276


A Little Less than Gods


his bridle arm was useless at his side. He bagged nevertheless the officer at that one; but when the bullet took out
his left eye he could not see very well with the other and
the men at the next were ready for him, warned by the firing and shouts. Before that it had been easy, for he had
had mostly only to sabre officers who were bending over
the sights of the gun. Madame Helene was to understand
that these were no artillerists but merely infantry and one
or two cavalry officers and men who loaded and fired in a
rule-of-thumb manner. The last one, at least, had one of
those squat brass helmets with plumes on the right hand
side at the rear that the cavalry-or it may have been the
militia-wore in battle. But they had stopped him before
he killed the next, that officer shooting his horse in the
windpipe from in front with a pistol so that the animal had
crashed right onto the gun itself, breaking Gatti's leg in
several places. He begged Madame Helene not to think
him wanting in humanity for singling out only officers to
attack. He had done it because he reasoned out that the
officers most probably would have some slight knowledge
of how to fire cannon which the Other Ranks were less
likely to possess. He could not expect to kill or maim
more than one at each piece, but he had thought that if he
killed the officer the brain of the gun would be gone.
He was continuing quietly: "That apparently proved
to be the case, for I heard lately..." when Helene
screamed:
"Oh, why did you not kill George Feilding! Why did
you not kill George!"
Scream after scream of laughter came from her, con



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277


tinuing, shaking, seeming to echo from the ceiling and
walls of the gloomy, high room.
With enormous difficulty he pushed his high, heavy
chair round so that he could see her and yet sit; he could
not trust his unaccustomed feet upon the slippery parquet
of the flooring. It would be a pretty sight if he crawled
on his hands and knees whilst she screamed with laughter.
But she would stop soon; she had great strength of mind
and would stop soon. In the event she stopped and looked
at him dazedly. He said:
"I do not understand very well. If the young man
has injured you... has betrayed... what do I
know? Though I like him very well I will shoot him.
He could not refuse to meet a soldier with my record
and, strapped to a post, I could shoot him. There is nothing against being strapped to a post. I have seen it
done!"
She said: "ListenI You could do me a service." She
leaned forward on her chair and touched his knee. "It is
insupportable that he should be in this house and in
misery. But what is to be done? What is to be done?"
He said: "I don't know. I don't know. I am an old
man, you a young girl, but it is you that must enlighten
me."
She said: "There is nothing to be done. There is nothing but pain. It is irremediable."
"There is nothing that is irremediable," he said.
"This is!" she answered. "It is the one case in the
world that is irremediable."
"Madame Helene," he said gravely, "if you so love this




278       A  Little Less than Gods
young man... For either you love him and another has
him or has taken him from you.. or you have been
false to him.... And irremediable! That is no word.
Say your father had killed his... or his brother your
brother.... But you have no brother.
She had been looking away, unlistening; now she looked?
at him, her eyes dilated, brushing back the hair that had
fallen on her brow.
"No brother?" she asked. "No, I have no brother! " She
said:
"This is aside from the mark.  You have seen him
often? How often? Every day? For long periods? Then,
talk to me of him. How did you come to him? In what
health did he-no, does he-appear? Talk of him!.
How is he even dressed; how does he pass his days?"
He said: "I have seen him every day at Madame
Krudener's.
She said sharply: "What? Who is that? What woman?
Has he formed an attachment? Mind what you are saying!"
He said: "No; it is the milor that appears to be at,
tached to Madame Krudener. Why, heaven knows! In
effect she is the Tsar Alexander's mistress. Or seer. Or
prophetess. No one knows. Perhaps it is pride that attaches the milor to the lady. He might pride himself on
detaching the seer or prophetess or mistress of the Tsar
Alexander from the Tsar. On the other hand he is such a
Lucifer for pride that he regards the Tsar as the dirt
under his feet. So he would hardly take pride in taking the
Tsar's leavings. It is all a riddle."
She said: "It is not the Tsar nor the milor nor the




A Little Less than Gods


279


mistress of one or the other that is the thing I wish to
hear about."
"It is difficult," he answered," to talk of the young man
without talking of the others. It is a daily program.
Every afternoon at thirty-five minutes past two the young
man appears in the salon of Madame de Krudener, dressed
now in dark purple, now in bottle green, now in bleu de
roi. Very modish. And there he will stay till six thirty,
talking very little, except that from time to time he will
contrive to ask of Madame de Stael, of Madame Rummel,
of Madame Recamier, of M. Constant or whom you will,
if they can give him your address. For you might, he
thought, be at Coppet with Madame de Stael or at St.
Cloud with Madame Recamier.... Or no, it is Bourrienne that is at St. Cloud and was complaining of the
Prussians of Marshal BlUicher. I have forgotten where
Madame Recamier was."
"This is like being mad," Helene said. "Who are all
these people?... I know who they are.... But what
are they doing?... And he is below in another room
and you will not tell me how he appears!"
He answered patiently:
"During his incarceration he appeared pallid and, at
the conclusion, weak. We had to carry him from the Court.
But he is young and strong... though he seems older
now, as is natural that he should! He was dressed today in
d(lark purple with an odd, buckled hat and a clouded cane."
"Oh, I do not ask how he is dressed," she said, "though
it would be more fitting if he dressed like me in black.
I ask you to tell me why he goes to this Madame; how
he came there in the first place."




280


A Little Less than Gods


"Why," Gatti answered, "the milor will not suffer him
to dress in black since it might imply repentance on his
part. His father has disinherited him..:." She gave a
cry of pain. "That is to say," he continued hastily, "he has
agreed with his father to his own disinheritance except as
to lands-in the West Indies, I think. But there have
been comings and goings of lawyers.... In short, the
young man is liked by many but shunned by some. I have
seen an English general avoid his hand when he held it
out."
"He should be in my arms: in my armsI... Oh my
God, what do I say!" she sobbed.
"He should be in your arms," Gatti said gravely. "He
went to Madame de Krudener's salon for no other purpose but to have your direction.... Do you suppose he
went to pray with the Tsar or to hear the prophesies
of Madame Kummel or Rummer, for I forget the
name?... And he had your address this afternoon
from-I did not hear the lady's name either-and ran
straightway from the room. There were but few remaining there and when they went the milor bade me follow
him, and since I knew he would come to this house I
myself came. But I pray he may not have committed some
amorous follies with that woman, for today the Tsar was
to have handed him the ukase-if it is a ukase-for the
pardon...
Helene was shivering, drawing in her breath in little
jets.
"In heaven's name," she brought out, "what has George
to have from the Tsar? And you spoke of amorous follies...."




A Little Less than Gods


28i


"I spoke of the milor," Gatti said. "I beg you to be
patient with me."
"Oh, poor Felice!" 1shw said, "I will be patient. Think
only that for five months I too have been like a prisoner
in this house: that I know nothing; see nobody; that I
am distracted with griefs and anxieties; that my life is
ended; that there remains only for me the service of
God!"
"Death of my life," the Corsican exclaimed, "you will
not go into a convent!"i
"The Americas are closed to me," she said; "I would-,t
have gone to them to see if the New World will not restore
what the Old has broken! But they are closed as by an
angel with a flaming sword."
"Ma... ma... " Gatti stuttered, "there is always
Corsica. You shall go with me to Corsica —with me as
your broken Squire. It is a lovely island with a divine
atmosphere."
"Oh but tell me.... That woman who told him where
I was. Who was she? I have lived so secludedly."
"I think it was the sister of the Comte Decazes," Gatti
answered; "I cannot tell, but I think it was because in her
connexion someone said that the Comte-and I think they
said 'her brother'-the First Minister of Louis, was a
humane man and well-disposed to him for whom all in
this house pray all day. She would have it of her brother
and her brother from his spies."
"No," Helene said, "Sophie was here to tell Aglae that
she daily importuned her brother for the pardon of our
dear Marshal. No doubt she would not think it amiss,
though I swore her to secrecy, to tell my address to a fine




282       A  Little Less than Gods
young man. She would think my secrecy confined only
to the spies of the Minister of Police who is less humane
than the Comte her brother."
"For myself," Gatti grumbled, "I distrust as much the
humanity of the Comte Decazes, First Minister, as I
should have distrusted it had I had to suffer under him
when he was assistant to Fouche in the police.... For
me all ministers, statesmen, Tsars, Emperors and Kings
and priests are tarred with the same brush."
She said: "It was then to discover where I was that
he went to the house of this Madame de... I cannot
say her name. But how did he obtain access to that salon?
She is I suppose no Englishwoman."
"She is I think Russian," Gatti said. "But if you will
not let me talk how can I convey news to you. He came
to Madame de Krudener in this way: You must know that
every afternoon since I could walk, which is now a month,
I have waited on the milor at half past two and we have
sallied out. Latterly-for the last six days or so-the
young Feilding has gone with us." It had been, at the
beginning, a singular introduction for him, Gatti, to all the
great of the world.
Assheton Smith had come to see him on October 10th nct
long after his return from the hospital in Brussels where
they had patched him up and given him a wooden leg.
That had been about-or exactly-a month ago, for it was
then November tenth. Smith had come to find him in the
room that he occupied in the house of his friend Madame
Trecocci. He and that lady had then had five sous between
them. Smith had needed him as evidence for the young
George Feilding and had taken him straight before the




J Little Less than Gods


283


Duke of Wellington in a Hotel in the Place de la Concorde where the Duke then had his private office. His
headquarters were elsewhere: that one the Duke used
for his private affairs: those of his estate, perhaps-or,
they said, for his amourettes. He had received them in
n;glig —a fawn dressing gown over a Turkish, frogged,
wadded jacket. The jacket had a star upon it that the
milor said wag the Garter or the Bath or something. The
milor supposed that the Duke slept with his orders to
impress his fly-by-nights. It had been afterwards that he
had said that.
The Duke had received them in a small room, very
high, lined with books that went up to the ceiling. There
was a ladder with a rail up which no doubt you climbed
to get at the highest books. Milor said that the Duke
never read a book in his life: the room had been in the old
days the private library of the Comte de Bourbon.
The Duke sat-it was late evening-behind an immense, gold-inlaid writing table with an immense book of
accounts open before him. He had also an inkwell made
of a horse's hoof, and on each side of him was the illumination of six candles in branch candlesticks. Behind
his back on the wall above the fireplace was a black
plaque of porcelain showing a profile of Napoleon the
Great. That, the milor said, was in the worst of taste:
when the Duke warmed his buttocks before the fire he
turned them towards his greater rival, desiring to show
that he was now the greatest power in the world. The
xnilor however had approved of the inkwell-hoof: he said
that it had belonged to-Gatti could not remember the
*lame-the Duke's last charger, a famous Arab.... But




284


A Little Less than Gods


even a Wellesley could have an affection for a favourite
horse! The Duke's face was so highly polished that the
candle-light shone on the highlights of his brows. He
extended two fingers towards the milor, Assheton Smith
waving his right hand to one side. The Duke had not
risen; the milor sat down unbidden. The Duke had looked
at Gatti like... Gatti threw his head back in order to
glance down his nose and half closed his one eyelid, to
assume an air of intense hauteur. Assheton Smith, leaned
elegantly forward on his cane, his satin-lined coat-skirts
on the ground. He said:
"Duke... this is the Colonel-Count... I beg your
pardon, your friends have degraded him. You see how,
with obedience, his tunic shows the places where his
ribbons have been removed. Even tunics obey your
friends! But this is Mr. Felice Gatti!"
The Duke minutely raised his lids and exclaimed:
"Ha! The man of the guns!" and, to Gatti: "You gave
us inconvenience!"
Gatti had tried to come to the "attention"-he was
before the victor of Mont St. Jean! -But it is difficult
to come smartly to attention when you support yourself
by a wooden leg and a crutch.
"Your friends..." the milor began.
"Your country's alliesI" the Duke said dryly.
"It is distasteful to think of them as my country's
allies," Mr. Smith said, "so I prefer to use the other locution. They then have showed an unusual generosity to
Mr. Gatti. They have left him the clothes on his back
and legs and five sous that they omitted to find in his
trousers' pocket! A sou a-piece for each ten of the battles




A Little Less than Gods


285


in which Mr. Gatti fought for his and their country."
"This then," the Duke said, "is your witness for your
young friend-the deserter."
Mr. Smith said: "For the sake of humanity, Duke, it
would seem that Count Gatti-I beg pardon, I meant no
treason-Mr. Gatti, should be invited to seat himself."
Of that the Duke took no notice: he continued to look
at the Corsican and asked if he spoke English, adding
that he should because he was probably born an English
subject. Gatti had answered that he had learnt English
whilst on parole at Bideford; before his exchange at the
Treaty of Amiens he had been there and on Dartmoor.
The Duke said:
"You fought a duel with an English officer called Feilding? In Elba? At the end of February? He was put upon
parole? You were both put upon parole? Well, what does
that prove? You were neither brought to trial."
Gatti said: "I was employed upon a duty, Monsieur le
Marechal."
Wellington said: "Say 'your Grace': I am not the Prince
of the Moskwa. You cannot throw dust in my eyes. You
were neither put upon trial because the thing was a plot."
Gatti said: "It is true, I am more used to speaking to
Marshal Ney. But he is more polite." He was beginning to
foam with rage-with virtuous rage! And that was curi-.
ous, because, in effect, the duel and its sequences had been
a plot-though George Feilding had had no part in it.
The Duke exclaimed: "Enough said. You old soldiers
of the Corsican exceed yourselves. Daily you grow more
brawling! "
"Why," the milor drawled, "Your Grace was to be re



286       A  Little Less than Gods
quested to open your Grace's ears-less as your
Grace the Duke than as Field Marshal and soldier-to
open then the ears of your Grace to the plea of this suppliant wretch-surely your Grace must have heard of
this brawling pauper's exploit with -which all the world
rings. Why, your Grace has heard of it. You spoke of
it just now."
"Mr. Smith," the Duke had said, "I have got up from
a bed of sickness at the dictates of humanity and at your
pressing instance.-... Who indeed would not at the instance of Mr. Smith?"
"Why," Mr. Smith said, "I have sixteen pocket
boroughs and command absolutely the votes of from
fourteen to twenty more. If they should at my direction
vote against the Government of which I have been the
supporter, they would count sixty upon a division and
your Grace being now more politician than commander of
armed forces.
"I confess, I cannot take you," the Duke said; "I wish
to, but I cannot if you will not be plainer."
Mr. Assheton Smith said:
"Your Grace... Your Grace's most excellent Grace,
is I believe the correct fashion of address to a duke."
"Mr. Smith," the Duke said-he was colouring and
fidgeting with his inkstand-"enough of this, an you will.
A soldier coming to beg clemency of the chief of his conqueror's forces should be acquainted with the correct style
in which to address that man. It is a detail of discipline:
you have heard that I am a disciplinarian."
"It is I then, Duke," Mr. Smith said, "that am to blame.
I am no soldier but I think I know enough of soldiers to




A Little Less than Gods


287


have the illusion that they would prefer to the title of
'Your Grace,' share it though you do with Archbishops,
which gives it a soft sound-I had thought that every
soldier in the world, aye and every layman, would prefer
to that title, that other one of Marshal-as who should
say 'Marshal of France,' when the words are in the
mouth of a follower and intimate, humble friend of the
Bravest of the Brave! In my ear, at least, the sound has
a greater resonance-as of the vox clara in altis....
More, then, of the trumpet sound! So, in short, it was I
that bade this poor fellow address you as 'Marshal.'..
It was plain, Gatti said, in recounting this scene, that
the milor's aim was to provoke the Duke of Wellington to
some imprudent explosion that he could report in all the
salons of Paris, as it was the Duke's aim to be circumspect. On the face of it, as he said, to Helene, what should
this civilian, who had not even any office, have about him
to make circumspection in handling him seem desirous to
the conqueror of the conqueror of the world? But you
had to consider the singular nature of the British people of
whom Mr. Assheton Smith was at that moment the idolas being Master of the Quorn Hounds, incomparable with
the duelling sword, unapproachable for wealth, insolence
and the promotion of boxing. If, Gatti said, you had driven
daily about Paris with Mr. Smith, as he had been privileged to do, you would have observed the singular phenomenon of the crowds that followed the carriages of the
respective great. If Mr. Smith's carriage should meet and
pass the carriage of Louis XVIII, far over half the crowd
following the King would be detached and follow the




288


A Little Less than Gods


milor; if it were Wellington himself, less to more accord&
ing to the neighbourhood; the Tsar Alexander less; Marshal Blucher far less. In short the only one who had held
his own with Mr. Assheton Smith had been Sir Walter
Scott, and he not quite. And his popularity increased the
more when it was known that Mr. Smith was devoting
the whole of his energies against, at least, the Duke, possibly Marshal Blucher and possibly the King-the whole
of his energies to saving from the firing squads that were
the final expression of the Emigres and Ultras, not only
Marshal Ney himself but even humbler prey. And the
keenness and insolence of Mr. Smith's tongue was a thing
of which the Duke of Wellington himself might well stand
in awe-and in the end he had his votes in the House of
Commons! His popularity had indeed been increased to
fever heat just before this-the third-interview of his
with the conqueror of Waterloo, by a fortunate circumstance. As their carriage went one day slowly in the crush
of the equipages of the innumerable distinguished and
wealthy of all nations, a man had sprung onto the hindsprings of the carriage and, leaning over, had stabbed Mr.
Smith in the shoulder with a poniard. The wound had
indeed been the merest pin-prick and, with the greatest
sang-froid and rapidity, Mr. Smith had seized the wrist of
the fellow who was attempting another stroke, having
hoisted himself further over the hood. At the subsequent
inquiry-before it had been quashed-it had appeared
that the fellow had been hired by a committee of the detested Ultras to perform that action. But Mr. Smith
had been afforded the occasion to appear in public


I




A Little Less than Gods


289


with a spotless scarf supporting his arm and had been unable to pass a group of scarlet officers lounging at the
cafes on the boulevards without their rushing out, hoisting their shakos high and cheering him to the echo....
And it had been as the would-be deliverer of Ney that they
cheered him. Mr. Assheton Smith indeed declared that he
knew two separate conspiracies amongst younger officers
to rescue the Marshal from the Conciergerie and to transport him to a safe spot in England-as had been done by
Sir Robert Wilson.
So it had seemed to Gatti that Wellington's ceding of an
interview to Mr. Assheton Smith had about it quite as
much the air of his pleading to Mr. Smith for his own
policy as of permitting Mr. Smith to plead the cause of
Ney.
The Duke had, earnestly but without agitation, put it
to Mr. Smith that he owed a duty of patriotism to his
country and his sovereign. It was essential to the interests of Great Britain that the King of France should be
strengthened. He pointed out that, had not he and the
British troops long preceded the Russians and Austrians
in Paris, France would certainly have been parcelled out
between the Emperors, and that would be finis Britan"For me," Mr. Assheton Smith said, " I would rather
my country were ended than disgraced by getting between
the sheets with such lousy bedfellows as this King and
his crew."
The Duke went on to say that to present such a spectacle of pardoned desertion, treason and perjury as Mar



290


A Little Less than Gods


shal Ney would be, if ever again he walked the streets of
Paris, irretrievably to weaken the cause of the King.
In the first place it would encourage all the boasting
and rebellious remainders of the ex-Emperor's army who
sufficiently swaggered it already in the public streets, and
then it must alienate from his Majesty the loyalest and
warmest of his supporters.
"You would bolster up a throne by treachery and murder," Mr. Assheton Smith said highly. "ThereAre African
potentates whose golden  chairs are supported  on
skulls.... But what skulls are these that your Gracea soldier-would employ for his throne of cobwebs?..
You are a soldier and you will give the eyeless, socketless
heads of whom?... Of the bravest of the brave, or the
most commanding of commanders, of the most soldierly
of soldiers... and of a few poor mice like Frejus the
banker and I know not whom!"
"Frejus the banker is a most dangerous man," the
Duke said. "I was as relieved by his condemnation yesterday as if I had won a battle in Spain."
"He does not hold any of your paper?" Mr. Assheton
Smith said. "It is not Carleton House that shall mourn for
the death of that financier. I on the other hand am handicapped in my pleading, holding a cool million pounds or so
of his. So that if I pleaded for his life I should have the
appearance of advancing the cause of my own pocket....
I should nevertheless suggest that you should respite him
-in Louis's interests."
The Duke, relieved to be talking of Frejus and so to be
free of the subject of Ney, affected a limp interest.




A  Little Less than Gods           291
"Why," Mr. Smith said, "it is reported that his fortune
and all trace of it have disappeared. His wife I know has
been deprived of her dowry and charged not only with the
expense of his trial to the state but also with the fees of the
admirable Sanson, the executioner."
"It is true that his~papers and the traces to much of his
fortune have disappeared in the hands of a fellow that
passed for his footman," the Duke said, "but I do not see
what we should gain by his respite."
"Why, you could worry him till he disclosed," Mr.
Smith said; "or there are red-hot pincers.... They say
you have tortured Labedoyere."
The Duke said: "Come, come, Mr. Smith.... Obviously we have put pressure on the Baron de Frejus. He
turned considerable sums belonging to the Crown into the
coffers of Napoleon."
"Why," Mr. Smith said, "you could promise him his
life and when he had revealed his secrets you could guillotine him."
"I think you are not in earnest," the Duke said.
"A cool million is no flea-bite," Mr. Smith said. "You
understand that I am talking of pounds sterling, not
French livres."
The Duke asked what he would have.
"Why," Mr. Smith said coolly, "only that, if I am able
to persuade the Comte Decazes to respite this financier
for a month longer, you will not insist on his head for
tomorrow's breakfast."
"I have nothing against it," the Duke said. "Carleton
House, as you know, demands that he should be made an




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A Little Less than Gods


example of, but I take it they are in no hurry.... That
is rather a matter for the French. It is they who clamour
for his removal....
"You could hardly call them French," Mr. Smith said
softly.
"Why, call them what your whimsical taste demands,"
the Duke answered. "But it is certain that the Comte
Decazes will lie on no bed of roses if he delays throwing
Frejus's head to the ci-devant emigres and Ultras. They
are anxious that their paper should be put into a state
where it cannot be presented as is the case when an accepter is executed for High Treason. And de Frejus must
hold enough of their pre-Restoration paper to line all the
drawers in the Tuileries. But I am not sufficiently their
friend-think what you will-to prefer their interests to
those of Mr. Assheton Smith."
The Duke at that point presented visible traces of fatigue. Sweat, when he leant forward between the candles,
was visible on his temples, but mostly he had abandoned
his ramrod attitude and leaned back in his chair.
"With that settled I would not keep you from the
warm delights of your Grace's bed," Mr. Smith said. "But
I do earnestly desire to set before your Grace certain considerations. I beg you to consider that Marshal Neywith the exception of One," and he glanced pointedly at
the plaque that showed the vengeful visage of Bonaparte,
"with the exception of one, the Marshal is the only soldier
who in the opinion of the world stands before your Grace.
If, without raising a finger in his protection you permit
this man to go down before a squad of infantry to Orchus,
what shall be the dreadful opinion of Posterity upon your




A Little Less than Gods


293


Grace's motives or of all the nations on the credit of our
country? I beseech-I truly beseech-your Grace to let
my representation weigh with you. And I am a man who
never before deigned to ask a favour from the mightiest
that ever sat on a throne. But I am interested for my
country, and for good or for bad at this moment your
Grace holds the credit of our country in the hollow of his
palm as atchild might hold a penny."
"Mr. Smith," the Duke said, "you have spoken with a
frankness such as is in turn seldom my privilege to hear.
I will speak with an equally open revelation of my mind.
I have my duty to consider and if Posterity is ass enough
to adopt your views, which seem to me to be tinged with
the hypochondria of the age-a thing that I regret to see
in one who-be my claims to immortality, or those of
Marshal Ney or of Bonaparte, who at least was a soldier,
what they may-is the greatest master of the Quorn that
ever ordered the Hark Forrard-in short if Posterity will
malign me Posterity be damned! "
Both of them had sprung to their feet and regarded each
other, breathing hotly through their nostrils.
"Sir," the Duke said, "this pother that the Universe
makes about that fellow is inexplicable, and you will
regret in the end your besottedness. The fellow is a
boisterous oaf, the fellow is no general, the fellow is no
soldier. Do you suppose that soldiering is a matter of
standing on guns or the plinths of statues waving your
sword as a drummer before a booth gesticulates with his
drumstick!"
Mr. Assheton Smith's face had become set and vicious.
"Wellesley, Wellesley!" he exclaimed, "the man you




294


A Little Less than Gods


malign was called the Bravest of the Brave by a greater
than you and his very sword has received the accolade of
the Universe."
"It was his sword, as you know, betrayed that swaggering and drunken peasant to the prefect's men at Auxerre,"
Wellington said. "And bravery! What has bravery to do
with soldiering? I do not pride myself on my bravery!"
"You do welll" Mr. Smith said. "Ney was a fool not.
to have served under John Company in India. Against
Tippoo Tib was it? At Patiala was it? Or Bandracore?"
The Duke's high, lean face in turn became rigid and,
the star on his breast gleaming as he moved, he shifted his
right hand to his left thigh. He had actually, in his youth,
passed before a Court of Inquiry concerning a retreat
he had ordered in an Indian campaign, and, though he
had been acquitted, he had never-as was the case with
most of his great contemporaries-had occasion to display
conspicuous valour on the battlefield.
"Why," Mr. Smith said, "I am well-known enough to
refuse to receive the seconds of Arthur Wellesley, now
Duke of Wellington, Marquis of Douro and the rest. I
think your Grace would do well to avoid the disgrace of
my refusal!"
The Duke stood looking down at his long, lean fingers
that now tapped the table before him.
"Of that too I must take my chance with Posterity," he
said dryly, "though I am aware that it is a more serious
matter to have one's personal courage impugned by Mr.
Assheton Smith than to be saddled with the responsibility
for the death of Mr. Smith's proteg6.... In short Mr.


)




A Little Less than Gods


295


Smith will not fight and the Duke of Wellington will not
send his seconds to Mr. Smith.... We are Englishmen
of position in a foreign country in time of peril and
change...
"Why, if you can find a formula..." Mr. Smith said.
His eyes glittered with excitement.
"I am looking for one," the Duke rejoined.... "You
wish for a formula to save the face of the Duke of Wellington, for the credit of your country."
"I look for nothing elseI" Mr. Smith said.
"Why," the Duke answered, after he had pondered,
"you may say that first the King of France was sick so
that I could not go to him and that now I am so gripped
that I cannot stir out and go to the King of France. So
we cannot discuss the matter."
Mr. Smith started with astonishment. The answer was
so exactly the heartless pronouncement that he had desired to get from the Duke that he was unable to believe
his ears. He exclaimed:
"You say that seriously. It is a pronouncement that
alone might save Ney by causing a revulsion in the minds
even of his persecutors! "
The Duke answered: "Why, if that is what you came
for you have it. For myself I am indifferent! "
"It is an answer that will convince the world," Mr.
Smith said. "I too should prefer lying abed by day with
Kitty Clandon to the society of Louis le Desire in the
evening! "
The Duke laughed dryly:
"Lady Clandon is in Belfast," he said, "but if she were
here I too should prefer it."




296       A  Little Less than Gods
As they had been leaving the room, Mr. Smith supporting the Corsican solicitously with a hand under his
left armpit, the Duke had said:
"A moment, Mr. Smith. I care nothing as to who hears
my opinions of Marshal Ney, a gentleman so vain that
he cannot travel without a presentation sword so conspicuous that it procures his arrest-to our great inconvenience...." It was indeed said that Ney at the house
of a kinsman where he had been in hiding after Waterloo
had left a presentation scimitar lying in that kinswoman's
drawing-room and, visitors observing it and reporting on
it to the sub-prefect, that official had argued that Ney
must be in the house and so had effected his arrest....
"But," the Duke continued, "there are things that as
patriots we can only discuss under four eyes."
Mr. Smith, depositing Gatti on a leather-covered bench
that was in the stone corridor, had returned into the
Duke's room where he had stayed a long time. When he
came out he was excited, animated and insistent. He insisted that Gatti should hurry his laborious steps down the
long stone stairs. They were going at once to the Tuileries.




CHAPTER THREE


Q0 that the life of the Marshal turns in the end on
the sole will of the Tsar! " Gatti said. He surveyed
Helene for a long silence with his one eye, mournful and
scrutinizing.
"Dearest Helene," he said, "I spoke not unadvisedly
but yet p!rhaps wrongly as to the fate that hangs over
Frederick, your husband."
She said: "No, no, dear Felice. You did right. You
could see that I listened with breathless attention. I have
heard Mr. Assheton Smith himself recount that interview,
and to hear your confirmation at least gives my mind repose.... Mr. Smith is a very admirable person, I do
not doubt, but he has been for so long buried in such a
maze of intrigue and business that it is impossible at
times not to let a suspicion of doubt of his motives cross
one's mind."
Gatti elevated his one hand in the air and dropped it
slowly.
"I used," he said, "to think as you say you do. But
since I have known that milor better I have come to see
that his is a very natural and unsubtle character." Mr.
Smith, in short, acted on the lines of insatiable vanity
with a subtle, unemotional, but never-ceasing industry.
If you desired to know which way Mr. Smith was going
from any given position you had only to consider at which
point his vanity could be most-and most astonishingly297




298


A Little Less thanz Gods


gratified-and gratified in face of the world. So that his
ambition to save Marshal Ney was simply and plainly a
part of his life. He desired to save Ney in the first place
because he had truly generous emotions, because the spectacle of Madame Aglai's grief had indeed touched him,
and because he thought that the credit of his country
would be smirched if the scoundrelly enterprise were persevered in. But perhaps none of those motives would have
spurred him to the amazing activities that he had displayed-for he was a naturally lazy man-had it not been
that his vanity had been aroused at the idea that he alone
might thwart not only the Duke of Wellington, whom he
heartily disliked and despised, but also King Louis XVIII
and half the potentates of the earth. So, that his heart was
wholly engaged and his imperious will -altogether set in
motion in the enterprise of saving the Marshal, no human
being could doubt. He had declared that never again
would he cross saddle as Master of the Quorn if he did not
have the Marshal either freely pardoned by the King, or
at the very least safely exiled and leading a pastoral life
in one or other of the Americas.
"So that, in the end," said Helene, "we are all of us
puppets in the game of this nabob whose money is his sole
means of illustriousness and whose heart is as dry and
thin as a last year's leaf!"
"Why," Gatti answered, "are we not all in the end the
puppets of the gods?"
"Ay, but the men at whose hands we suffer are a little
less than gods! " she answered bitterly.
He conceded that, in their separate roles, Michael Ney,
the Baron de Frejus, Mr. Assheton Smith-and the




A Little Less than Gods


299


greatest of alll -were a little less than gods. But he
doubted if Jupiter had as many men in the hollow of his
hands as any one of them, their influence over the fortunes
and so the lives of their fellows being so enormous, Mr.
Assheton Smith obtaining his power by prestige, the Baron
de Frejus his by gold, Michael Ney his by the desperation
of his bravery-and the Emperor his by a combination
of all three attributes.... Why, even the Tsar Alexander had a certain gloomy force of-you might call it
conscience. Or it was perhaps more than consciencepious hubris....
He broke off to say, tentatively and as if advancing
with fear along the ground:
"I would have you to know that Mr. Assheton Smith
is not without his tenderness or his affections. He is difficult to engage but once his heart is interested it is of a
great loyalty. He manifests a genuine and continuing affection for yourself, for Madame Agla6..
"Why, I know    it," Helene said, "but we are
women....
"It is nevertheless for your husbands and lovers that
his exertions are expended." He looked her carefully and
cautiously in the eye. "You may, as you know, count me
as your devoted lover, and the kindness and humanely
thoughtful consideration that this milor has bestowed upon
me are beyond belief. When my wounds have ached he
has sat up whole nights with me since he believes himself
gifted with healing properties."
She said: "That then is only another of his ceaseless
vanities.... He desires to be not only ruler, leech,
healer, despot of modes..




300


A Little Less than Gods


"He has," Gatti rejoined, "a very marvellous liniment
of his own devising made for the relieving of the pains of
his hunters and that has singularly relieved the ache of
my wound. It is compounded of turpentine, the white of
eggs and other things I forget.... And to see him
with a horse-they will follow his stiff figure as a woman
at the height of her passion will follow her lover to the
world's end!"
"Why," she exclaimed harshly: "Tell me, then, about
George Feilding. It is of him that you itch to speak. Mr.
Assheton Smith went principally to the Duke of Wellington to speak about him. Yet you have told me of a whole
long play of Hamlet without a Hamlet.... I am at my
wits' end as it is with this fellow below stairs. A little more
or a little less is much the same."
He mopped his brow with an old purple handkerchief.
He asked: Phew! did she not suppose that the presence
of the young man downstairs pleading with Madame did
not give him as much of a pain in the back as her. He
said he had not spoken of what Mr. Smith had said of the
young man during his interview with the Duke because he
did not know how she herself felt towards the young man.
"Well, you need not speak of it," she said; "Mr. Smith
has already reported most of it to me-his solitudes, his
despairs, the odours of the horses that the troopers cleaned
below his windows in the barracks where he was confined: the upshot of the trial too and his-his admirable
bearing. You see, I know. You might as well have told
me."
He regarded her, pondering:




A   Little Less than     Gods        301
"It comes back to this," he said; "the life of the Marshal turns in the end on the sole will of the Tsar!"
He felt that in some mysterious way all their lives were
bound up in that event, but the clue to the riddle he could
not see. Thus in some way the life-the survival-of
Frederick de Frejus undoubtedly was bound up with the
fate of Ney. But how? Mr. Assheton Smith was as earnest
that Frejus should be respited from time to time as that
Ney should be saved. Yet no one-least of all Mr. Assheton Smith-was much interested in Frejus. Frejus was
jovial, a bon-vivant, he gave enormous entertainments at
which the silver-plate blazed like the sun and the champagne poured itself out like waterfalls. But in the end
he was a financier-and financiers, if they may have
mercy, excite seldom either the affection or the pity of
their fellow men. There is too much debt in the world: a
natural-born beggar will excite you to more exertion in
his interests than the greatest of financiers come on
ruin.
Yet from time to time Mr. Assheton Smith would say
between his teeth:
"We must get that banker respited.... Do not forget
to remind me that that banker must be respited!"
In the end he had been respited.... Sine die!
He lived in his cell in the Conciergerie, which was next
to that of Ney himself, in the full splendour of the life of
a financier. Going about everywhere with Assheton Smith,
ostensibly in the role of interpreter, Gatti had been many
times in the cell of Frejus.... It was redolent of hot



302


A Little Less than Gods


house blooms, oysters, sherbet of Shiraz, cantatrices from
the opera, attar of roses, foie gras, oriental divans....
And, since Frejus jocularly declined to discover where one
jot of his millions had disappeared to, it was Mr. Smith
who not only paid for but took pains to procure these
pleasures for the banker. Yet Mr. Smith spent nothing on
the Marshal, who, most of his goods having been sequestered, was dependent on Madame Agla6 for such comforts
as she was able to afford him.
Mr. Smith conversed mostly in private with the Baron,
Felice Gatti being left outside the cell door; but when the
milor came out, Felice could always hear the Baron exclaiming after a riotous laugh:
"C'est entendu.... It's understood. It's understood!"
One day he had even asked the milor whether in the
first place the Baron was certain to die and, in the second,
whether he knew it.
The milor had answered gravely that there was no
power on earth that could save Frederick Scheffauer,
Baron de Frejus, since he would stretch no hand to save
himself. And it was to be doubted whether, even if he disclosed the secret places in which his wealth was hidden
and excused their debts to all his debtors amongst the
Ultras-whether even then they would spare his life. He
knew, for one thing, too much about them-but even without that there was their cold longing to take human life.
And again, even at that, the financier had his vanities that
would support him into the tumbril and beyond. He was
determined to leave his vast fortune to his wife.
Her defection from him had mortally wounded his
pride; his rejoinder was to burden her with a wealth that




A4 Little Less than Gods            303
he knew her to scorn. She might refuse to handle it-but
even at that he had so arranged matters that no one else
could. He had faithful servants, and a certain probity is a
necessary property amongst financiers. His moneys were
in stocks in England, Austria, the Americas, Holland-in
places where the Ultras could not get their fingers on
them, for the Fusstossers, the Rothschilds, the van Burens
and the rest could, as holders, be certain to be faithful to
their trusts-even though it was a Fusstosser whose evidence was mainly responsible for bringing him to the
salad basket. They were glad to be rid of his competition;
but they could not afford to betray his trust in places
where French law did not run and the emigres were
despised.
So no one could release the fortune of Frejus but his
wife; and even if she went into a convent and delivered
the fortune to her order it must be her act and her volition. So he was as stubborn as his persecutors and upon
the whole enjoyed life more. For, as he said, life consists
in emptying so many hundreds of bottles of sillery or
hermitage; consuming so many oysters, truffles and kegs
of caviare. Normally you did not consume all that you
might like to for fear of shortening your life, but if your
life was to be shortened you could condense all those pleasures into as short a time as was given you.... On the
other hand the Ultras had to fear that, as soon as he was
dead, the bills they had given him years before might be
presented by the respectful but perfectly remorseless
Fusstossers, Rothschilds and the rest. So they were on the
horns of a dilemma and had finally consented to the respite sine die that with perfect nonchalance Assheton




304


A Little Less than Gods


Smith had' demanded, first of the King's First Minister,
Decazes, and then of Louis himself.
They had hastened straight from the Duke's to the
Tuileries where, finding Lord Castlereagh with the Comte
Decazes, the English lord had introduced the milor
straight into the presence of the sovereign. For some
reason or other the King was padding slowly up and down
a corridor which contained at one' end a day-bed, some
chairs and a desk, and which was lighted by candle-sconces
at rare intervals on the walls.
Mr. Smith said subsequently that this was because the
sovereign was crowded out of his palace by the e~migrds,
who claimed rooms under the protocol in the Tuileries;
but that did not seem very reasonable to Gatti, who presumed that the sovereign there took his exercise. They
stood in any case at one end of the corridor in a group
until the sovereign approached, which he did very slowly,
shuffling his feet.
Louis le Desire was in truth a mountain of flesh, dressed
in blue with white silk stockings and with a star on either
breast. But, if he was obese, he appeared in no way either
obtuse or ungracious. He was pleased to remark upon the
hat that he presumed the milor as the arbiter of ton intended to make his subjects wear. He then fixed his rather
piercing glance on Gatti, whom the milor announced as a
poor suppliant to his'Majesty and pensioner of his own,
recounting the cripple's exploit at the battle of Mont St.
Jean and begging for his reinstatement in his military
rank-for, at that date-in October-Gatti had been
ordered to consider himself quite simply drummed out of
the army. The King asked the Comte Decazes, a debonair




A  Little Less than Gods            305
and agreeable young man, to inquire into the case of
Gatti.
That Gatti was pleased at this presentation of himself
as a petitioner to a king who irresistibly reminded him of a
ram, with his high nose, his grey waved hair, and his
receding forehead-that Gatti was pleased could not be
alleged. He nevertheless had acceded to the milor's
manceuvre, which was, in effect, a sort of blackmail.
"Here," in effect the milor seemed to say to such Royalists as they came across, "here is the soldier who has performed a feat such as has made France famous to the
stars. Will you leave it to me-you Frenchmen!-to me a
stranger and an enemy, to relieve his misfortune and assuage his sufferings?"
That done and being asked his next errand, the milor
coolly desired the respite for the Baron de Frejus, but
that was a matter as to which the King had no personal
views. He asked Lord Castlereagh-a lean, harassed and
mournful nobleman with a great nose and enormous eyes
-if he saw any reason why the milor should not be
obliged, and bade Assheton Smith put that matter to the
Comte Decazes, by whose judgment he was content to be
guided. He said to Mr. Smith:
"You see, sir, how we are guided in all things by the
methods of your constitution-how we consult our ministers, who, it is to be hoped, will bear any unpopularity
that shall result from those deliberations."
At that his Majesty, raising his brows, said that he
understood Mr. Assheton Smith was the richest commoner
in the United Kingdom.
"Why, your Majesty," Mr. Smith said, "I have reason




306


A Little Less than Gods


to believe myself the richest man, peer, commoner or
prince of the blood in the British dominions. The King
may own more land as king, but as a private man I own
far more and the King has, alas, no control of so much as
a square rod of his possessions. The insufficiency of the
Prince Regent's means to meet his Royal Highness's
necessities are too well known."
"Why, then," the King said, "you must, milor, be one
of the richest men the world has ever seen and could buy
us and our poor palace many and many a time over I1"
Mr. Smith, stiffly but precisely, set one knee on the
ground, bending the other.
"Sire," he said, "I would willingly give a large share
of my wealth for a stroke or two of your Majesty's pen on
this paper or parchment that I present to you"-holding
up a document that he had drawn from his bosom.
"That again," the King said with a little animation,
drawing both his white hands back, "that again is matter
for the Comte Decazes." He added: "And my lord Castlereagh has his say in the matter. You perceive, milor, that
your errand was not unforeseen."
At that Gatti shuffled off with himself for a pace or two,
but not so far but that he could hear Mr. Assheton Smith's
resonant voice say:
"Sire, your Majesty is reported as having said that the
man for whom I petition you did you more harm by
letting himself be taken than by his action on the 13th of
March last past. If your Majesty now frees him shall not
your Majesty negative the ill that was so done?"
His Majesty said: "Nay, an ill so easily negatived had
been no ill I"




A  Little Less than Gods           307
They talked, their heads-except the King's-in a
bunch, and Gatti could not hear what they said. The
King his hands behind his back, took a short turn, reapproached them, took another short turn and again came
back, his agitation being evident in his pendulous cheeks
and heavy eyes.
He said once: "C'est Ca! C'est Ca!" to the Marquis of
Castlereagh and then rubbed his hands with an expression
of slyness, and the conclave continued.
"In short," the milor said at last in a high tone, "if I
bring you-or if the Comte Decazes should receive-a
communication from the Tsar asking for clemency to the
hero of Borodino....
"Sir," the Comte Decazes answered in the same high
tone, "if you or anyone can procure that, it will very
materially alter the situation."
The King then retired to the day-bed at the far end of
the corridor and called Gatti to him as he sat, panting,
his legs far apart, Gatti slipping and skating with
his crutch and his stick, more than ever like a dishevelled bat in the dim light of the candles.
It was curious to him to stand in the presence of this
potentate, he having been for so long the familiar of a
greater. It was impossible to deny a certain quality of
kingship to this immense being. He addressed Felice as a
large, rather jocund bachelor might address a child-and
that Gatti should not resent this was at least some proof
of majesty. He began by asking Gatti what exactly he had
done: Mr. Assheton Smith with the hyperbole that became
him in presenting a petitioner had said that Gatti had
almost reversed the fates of the battle of Waterloo.




308


A Little Less than Gods


"That is nonsense, Sire," Gatti had said. "If the guns
had not been taken the battle would not have been lost.
All that I did was, after they had been taken, to prevent,
in some sort, for a short time their being used against
Marshal Ney's and Marshal Kellermann's retreating....
The King said: "You were known by another
name... as di... di... Do not prompt me!...
di Vivario-as Gatti di Vivario. I never forget a face, seldom a name!"
"It is the royal gift, Sire," Felice said. "I was the
Colonel-Count dei Gatti di Vivario before they drummed  A
me out of the army!"
The King slightly raised his fat white hands from his
fat cream-coloured thighs.
"There are those," he said, "who are more royalist
than the King. We shall see what we can do to remedy that
inadroitness!"
Gatti made a feint at a bow, ducking his chin over his
crutch. He said he asked no more than to remain as he
was, for he was in no condition to serve his Majesty.
"My friend," the King said, "we have shown that we
were familiar with-or if not familiar with your name, at
least not oblivious of it-and familiar with your exploit,
which was such as to make every true Frenchman blush
with pleasure at the recital. You shall find that your King
is no less a Frenchman in that particular than the meanest
of his subjects that salutes you as you walk the boulevards!"
He hesitated for a moment, moving his hands at random
and muttering: "M'm, m'm, m'm!" Then he said:




A  Little Less than Gods           309
"We have borrowed from our friends the English their
constitution which ensures that a king may only act
through his ministers; so, as we do not know how that
constitution works, we do not know how we may reward
you. But be sure that your face will not be- forgotten by
us, nor your valour."
Gatti made another convulsive movement towards a
bow. The King, rolling his elephantine bulk to one side
first, then to the other on the velvet cushion on which he
sat, held the back of his cold, gouty hand to the other's
lips.
"Mon colonel," he said, "or if you prefer it, Monsieur
le Comte, you are the first subject to receive whose salute
we have almost stood up.... Bid the milor convey your
wishes to us through the fitting channel. Be sure we shall
not be niggardly "
Till then, in effect, they had been niggardly
enough, having conferred on him a fortnight ago no more
than the honorary rank of Colonel-Inspector with no pay
attached. But the milor bade him be patient; he assured
him that the King had not forgotten him, that he himself,
the milor, was unsleeping in his service, and that shortly
he should have a post that should astonish him. The milor
was then engaged in negotiations with the Comte Decazes
as to which Gatti himself was in ignorance. So the Corsican
was content to wait, though indeed he asked nothing of
the ruling powers and if he could have had the capital
with which to start his cafe would have been content altogether. The milor however, urged him to patience. The
capital for a cafe, he said, was a small thing and Gatti
might be certain of it ten times. over-though whether




310


A Little Less than Gods


the city of Paris would ultimately suit him as a locality
the milor was doubtful. He suggested either Corte in his
native island or the still further atmosphere of Buenos
Aires-of which however he knew nothing.
Of the mysterious powers of Mr. Smith, Gatti had evidence enough to make him very content to wait. For in the
case of the young George Feilding Mr. Smith had showed
himself not only powerful but perspicacious. It had been a
fact that during nearly the whole of the incarceration and
trial of the young man the milor had had for him, in his
coat pocket, a free pardon signed by his Royal Highness
the Prince Regent. It was accompanied, it is true, by a
cool letter from an intimate of Mr. Smith's, called
Howard, who was about the person of the Prince at
Carleton House.
Mr. Howard said that to calm the natural anxieties of
Mr. Smith as to the fate of his young friend the pardon
was enclosed in the packet that brought the letter. But
his Royal Highness the Duke of York was anxious that
the document should not be used unless a condemnation
resulted from the court martial and that the young Feilding-who was surely sufficiently rewarded in that during
his absence with Boney the natural course of seniority
and regimental vacancies had brought him his captaincy!
-the young Feilding should be kept from access to his
regimental comrades. There was no doubt, Mr. Howard
said, that amongst the junior officers of certain regiments
of the Army of Occupation a strong movement existed for
the rescue by force of arms of Ney. And, with all due respect for Mr. Smith's belief in the spotless integrity of
Captain Feilding, Carleton House and the Horse Guards,




A Little Less than Gods


3II


he could not but feel that if such a conspiracy existed
amongst hot-blooded young devils, Captain Feilding was
the very person to become its nucleus. They were anxious
to oblige Mr. Assheton Smith to the extent of reason but
they would prefer him not to upset the junior ranks of the
forces through the activities of his admirable protege.
Moreover it would be to Feilding's advantage to clear
himself by trial if he could. Mr. Howard added that, as to
Mr. Smith's friend the financier, authority was ready to
acquiesce in his respite, but Mr. Howard begged Mr.
Smith to understand that if any ultimate loss resulted to
Mr. Smith's friends in England, from the highest to the
lowest-why, from the highest to the lowest, from the
purlieus of Carleton House to the stables of Windsor,,Mr. Smith might await a very considerable unpopularity
tend might in the end have to recoup.
Mr. Howard added a final postscript to the effect that
the whole land lamented Mr. Smith's arbitrary absence
from the mastership of the Quorn. His deputy Mr. Feilding, Sen., made an admirable substitute but his language
to the field had latterly been such as scorched the very
eyelids of their mounts and they sighed for the more
elegant vituperations of Mr. Smith.... Mr. Feilding,
in fact, seemed to have more than one shot in his locker,
bee in his bonnet, or what you would. He had positively
fought a fighting chimney-sweep for alleged riding down
the hounds-which the chimney-sweep had been much
too good of a sportsman really to do.
From the Tuileries, Mr. Smith and Gatti had gone to
the Hotel Monchelu, which, being not only next to the




3I2


A Little Less than Gods


Tsar's quarters at the Elysee but next also to the house
that Mr. Smith had hired, they had had some opportunity to repair Mr. Smith's attire. For, though the more
battered his companion appeared, the better it suited the
book of Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith himself would be consumed with concern if a very little dust settled on so much
as the easily brushed revers of his coat.
And they had been driving in a monstrously high chaiseand-four ever since early that morning, having been to
see Marshal Bliicher amongst the drearily destroyed
apple trees and furniture of the gardens and salons where
the Prussians were quartered at St. Cloud.
The visit to the Marshal, if it had helped them little,
had done no harm to the cause of the other Marshal in
the Conciergerie.... Very old and not even yet recovered from his exertions in the Waterloo Campaign, the
Prussian commander-in-chief had proved singularly benevolent and huskily courteous; but his French was weak
and the French of the generals surrounded by whom he
chose to receive the milor, was weaker still. They had no
English there and such German as Gatti knew he had
learned in South Germany whilst billeted in one or other
farmhouse, and as it was almost entirely dialect of the
Rhine, he was nearly incomprehensible to the Prussians
though he understood them fairly well.
The Marshal was in white with the scarlet ribbon of an
order like a cravat about his neck. He was about to pay
a visit to the Austrian Headquarters and, out of courtesy,
had adopted the uniform of the Kaiseliks. He sat stockily
behind a table, clasping and unclasping his ancient hands
and saying: Yes... no!... Yes... no!... Dis



A Little Less than Gods


313


cipline was a very necessary thing, the betrayal of one's
colours a very dreadful one. Humanity also had its claims.
Military valour was to be esteemed. Professional soldiers
were more humane to each other, even though enemies,
than civilians. For himself he wished well to any skilful
swordsman-beau sabreur. But these things were out of
his hands. He himself would neither advocate nor obstruct
the pardon of the Prince de la Moskwa.
He asked Mr. Assheton Smith a great many questions,
and with some animation, as to the breeding of his stallions and the breeds of his hounds. He understood that the
hounds of the Quorn Hunt were longer-legged than those
of the Pytchley and other packs because they were bred
from moorland packs who had to be longer-legged for
stepping over the heather. Did Mr. Smith, in fact, wear
scarlet at the head of his hounds? That was famous! And
blew a horn! So.
Mr. Smith was of opinion that the Marshal had been
coached in those questions by members of his staff so
that he might have some topic of conversation as a compliment to the milor.
The whole affair resolved itself more and more clearly
into a matter of high politics. This Gatti was reluctant to
credit, for he was of a type of mind that does not easily
believe that such a thing as high politics exists. Mankind
itself he had been taught by the learned Warenovius to
believe was in large part imbecile and diplomatists the
more imbecile part of mankind. But gradually in this affair a pattern began to manifest itself to him.
In the affair of Marshal Ney neither humanity nor an




314       A  Little Less than Gods
esteem for valour, neither regard for public opinion noi
even any esteem for military discipline, played any
marked part-at any rate in any of the participants save
the Tsar Alexander. It resolved itself into a duel between
the Duke of Wellington and Lord Castlereagh on the one
part and Prince Metternich on the other, the one side find,
ing it necessary to have a strong France in Europe, the
other seeking to weaken the Bourbons and so the country.
And it was taken as a rule of the game that, if Ney was
pardoned, the cause of at any rate Louis XVIII must be
irretrievably injured.
Metternich Gatti never saw, nor as far as he knew didl
the milor, but an Austrian-Polish prince Czartoryski at a
rout at Madame Recamier's gave Mr. Smith a resume of
the Prince's wishes. The Austrian ruler was said to take
an eminently serious view of the crime of betraying one's
monarch; Prince Metternich on the other hand was de,
sirous of seeing Ney pardoned so that public opinion
throughout the world might be assuaged. Indeed, so
strongly did the Prince take the view that clemency by
any one ruler strengthened the hands of all the rulers of
the world that, if Ney were pardoned by King Louis, he
would be ready to consider advising his sovereign to make
certain concessions....
This of course was pure hypocrisy. The concessions —
whatever they were, for Gatti himself never knew-that
Metternich spoke of were those that he found himself be,
ing driven into if Austria was to continue to receive its
subsidies from Great Britain. They had no doubt to do
with the Rhineland frontiers of France which the British
desired to secure, and Metternich, if he were driven into




A  Little Less than Gods           315
strengthening France by those means, was determined to
weaken her by strengthening, on the one hand, the Bonapartists and disgusting the Ultras with the monarchy of
which they were the chief props. He declared himself, however, unable to act without the sanction of his master, the
Emperor Francis Joseph, and declared that the Emperor
would never move in the matter without the sanction or
request of his august cousin, the Tsar.  So QuixoteSmith and his crippled Sancho found themselves in the
salon of Madame de Krudener towards seven of the evening of an early October day.
The curtains were all tight closed and an almost insupportable smoke of incense stifled them in that double
room, the outer of whose halves was in gloom, illuminated
by the blaze from the ikons, altar cloths, candelabra and
shrines in precious metal that shone from the recess.
Their first visit-and their visits since had been so frequent that Gatti now was unable to disentangle the menmories of any one from those of any other-their first visit,
then, had been very short, and they had not even very
fully perceived Madame Krudener-or Gatti with his one
eye had not, though the milor may have seen her more
fully.
To Gatti she appeared forty or more-the milor afterwards said with some indignation that she was much less.
She -had henna-coloured hair, a broad face, an opulent
but not too opulent figure. But for Gatti the main point
about that visit had been its air of mystery-or pietistic
magic. Himself an atheist of the old republican, Jacobin
type, he regarded the rites of Rome as transparent mummeries. But this dim interior, with its aperture revealing




3I6


A Little Less than Gods


the barbaric splendours of the Orthodox cult, affected him
unusually. He was unwilling to accord power to a Deityto any Deity save Reason-but, if there were a Deity,
unholy and mysterious, here, he felt, might be its shrine.
And Madame de Krudener might be its officiant!
She had, grouped around her, a number of singular
forms, mostly in black. They had queer, high, conical
hats; robes that floated in unusual angles, and whenever
the prophetess spoke their dimly discerned white faces
went together and a thin whisper pervaded the space.
No doubt their entry had been dramatic enough. They
had pushed ajar a heavy, padded, leather-covered swing
door such as they have in churches and, since they had
confronted a blaze of light, no doubt the light on them
shone as you may see it do at the entry of a favourite
actor on the stage. And Mr. Smith, though he may have
been blinded by the light, adopted and kept a sufficiently
impressive attitude-the right foot advanced, the right
hand supported by the cane on the floor, the great cloak
over the left arm, the hat in the left hand. He appeared,
too, more than usually fair; his coat was of nearly white
cloth; the Assheton diamond flashed from his voluminous
cravat.... His features were composed, melancholy,
high and disdainful. Gatti himself, in his patron's shadow,
dark and shapeless, must have appeared a mere Lucifer
crouched beside a St. Michael.
A low exclamation, like a shriek, came from their left
hand and the sibilant whisper went round among the dark
forms. A woman's voice exclaimed: "Ein Held-ein
Ritter!-kommt vom Norden!"-A hero-a Saviourlcometh from the North!




A  Little Less than aGods          317
Madame de Krudener stood beside the milor, the outlines of her face and hair lightly gilded by the illumination from the altars, her hands uplifted, her face full of
alarm or ecstasy.
He said resonantly: "I am Assheton Smith! I come to
ask for the pardon of the Prince de la Moskwa!" She
shrieked and covered her face with her hands. Again the
whispers went round amongst her assistants. In the further room a panel painted to show a gilt, angular Madonna holding a gilt and swaddled babe, slid back and a
dejected form, a round-headed, baldish, dun-coloured man
slowly shuffled out. The panel slid to behind him and he
fell, very slowly and with difficulty, onto his knees. He
crossed himself repeatedly and in a complicated manner.
Then he covered his face with his stubby hands and remained motionless. He was accounted the most powerful
man in the world.
During the next two days Mr. Assheton Smith was
mostly engaged reading a book on his day-bed in his
panelled dressing room. This was the more remarkable
since, although he was a classical scholar of some elegance,
he was never seen to read-and indeed he read slowly and
as if with some labour. From time to time he would look
up at Gatti and exclaim, haughtily and as if Gatti had contradicted him:
"This appears to me to be a remarkable passage," and
he would read out: " 'Her bosom palpitating with rage,
Valerie exclaimed: "Coward that you are. Your trembling
conscience shall force you into unhanding me!"'"
Or he would say:




318


A Little Less than Gods


"This thought is singularly well expressed: 'The desolation of a parent at the sudden demise of a cherished infant was as nothing to the grief experienced by Valerie
at this tragic occurrence!'" From time to time he would
start and exclaim: "Is this possible? Can such villainy
exist?"
How, in the short moment of agitation that their visit
had lasted, Madame de Krudener had contrived to hand
the milor that copy of her book, Gatti never knew. It is
certain that Mr. Smith was carrying it in his right hand
when they descended the gilded stairs of the Hotel Monchelu. And it is equally certain that that book-called
Valerie-played a remarkable part in the association of
the milor and the prophetess. He read it even to her,
herself, seated on a rather low chair beside her whilst she
reposed on her day-bed in the attitude then rendered
fashionable by Madame Recamier.
Nay, he read a vehement passage from Valerie to a
fashionable assembly that included Madame de Stael,
Madame Recamier, the Prince Czartoryski, Benjamin
Constant, the pastor Fontanes, Mademoiselle Decazes and
who knew whom. Standing up and his coat-tails appearing
to fly out behind him, he held the volume in the air and
declaimed long sentences as to mercy, the softer emotions,
generosity and the anguish of the heroine as to the fate of
her life's hero, who had gone upon a journey into frozen
wastes.
The audience had applauded with vociferation, first
one, then the other of the two writing-ladies rising from
the couch which had been provided for her and with tearstained faces embracing Madame de Krudener, who re



A  Little Less than Gods           319
mained upon her day-bed. Madame de Stail however left
immediately afterwards, being only en passage through
Paris to her beloved Venice-the Venice of Corinne. The
remaining audience exclaimed with one voice though in
widely differing accents that that admirable passage
proved finally the necessity for a free pardon for Michael
Ney. And all eyes went to Madame de Krudener-as they
always went to Madame de Krudener.
Madame de Krudener, however, raising tear-stained
cheeks to the milor, stretching up one hand to lay on his
fore-arm, nevertheless slowly and doomfully shook her
head. She had hitherto declared that Ney, as coming
from the South, was the enemy of Saviours from the
North. Now she was beginning to be over-persuaded.
That afternoon-the afternoon of the 10th November
when Gatti sat reflecting in the room of Madame Ney
and gazing dubiously at the face of Helene de FrejusMadame de Krudener had been really ecstatic. On the
day before the Court Martial on Ney had declared its incompetence to try a peer of France, and now or never had
been the time to strike in favour of the hero of Borodino.
The afternoon had nevertheless begun with a slight
check. They had been privileged to have the society of
the Tsar, who had come to assist at a trance that was
going to visit the woman Rummel or Krummer: Gatti
refused to remember her name. But Madame de Krudener had a host of supporters of a chiliast complexionchiliasts being Millennialists or believers in an immediate
Second Coming of the Redeemer-and they mostly had
singular and disagreeable names-there was the young
Empalatz or Empalast, the old and untidy Fontanes, a




320


A Little Less than Gods


pastor with a bedraggled wife; a number of lay members
of Orthodox convents and monasteries in singular black
costumes. But of them all the Rummel or Krummer
woman seemed to Gatti the most disagreeable.
In a chair before the ikons-the Tsar sitting like
Hamlet in the play-scene very much in the shadow to
the right of the room-this fair, pasty, squat and obese
woman in the dark blue costume with the horn-shaped
coif of one of the chiliast orders, had duly thrown herself into a trance. Her pallid face, the eyes closed, looked
upwards; she raised her deep-sleeved arms as if pointing
up an invisible ray that came from the ceiling; she extended them before her as if inviting the embrace of an
invisible being. She groaned, sobbed; the tears ran down
her cheeks; she writhed with her whole body.
The assistants, the poor Russians, Courlanders and
Germans at the back of th e room kept up a perpetual echo
of groans, sobs and ejaculations. From time to time one
or other of them fell to the ground and was removed with
singular expedition and singularly little noise. At each
of these occurrences the Tsar nevertheless looked irritably
round. He was in no propitious mood.
Those poor people had disposed of their farms, their
shops, their small flocks to follow Madame de Krudener
towards the Millennium, as indeed her singular gifts of
overwhelming her fellows with unanalysable emotions had
caused many thousand of poor people to do. The Tsar had
promised them a territory in the Crimea, but the Crimea
was a distant land and they were wearied with their
travels afoot from the ends of Europe. So Alexander had
already expressed distaste for that cohort that dogged his




A  Little Less than Gods           32I
footsteps and were too holy to be roughly rebuffed. It
was known too that he had already remonstrated with
Madame de Krudener for declaring to all and sundry who
came to her salon that she and she only had finally revised the treaty of the Holy Alliance that was shortly,
at the hands of the two Emperors and their subjects
and dependants, to spread peace and bliss through the
world with Metternich as its prophet. The Tsar was reported to have said that he had been made to appear
ridiculous!
So when at the end of the trance of Madame Rummer
he spoke two or three words of an eminent coldness and
then prepared to leave the room, a certain consternation
spread itself throughout the assembly. It would appear
that Madame Rummer, as the result of her trance, had
declared that a celestial visitor had ordered her to advise
the Tsar to spend a great portion of his earthly fortune in
endowing the Order to which she, Madame Rummer, belonged. And the Tsar was reported to have answered
coldly that he had too many similar revelations at the
hands of various other Orders to be seriously impressed.... Gatti did not of course understand Russian
but that had been how it had been reported to him.
The Tsar, his silhouette square and ungainly and singularly round-headed, had begun to cross before the ikons
to go to his panel in the wall that led to his apartments in
the Elysee. He stood bowing for a long time and then,
crossing himself, returned to lean over Madame de Krudener, who was still in the chair she had occupied at his
side. The whispers of dismay that had been going up from
the rear of the assembly became an agitated, tense hold



322


A Little Less than Gods


ing of the breath. He spoke for a minute in the lady's
ear and then, genuflecting and signing himself again,
made his way towards the panel in the wall beside the
ikons. It would appear that this panel opened not by
means of a spring but by human agency, for Alexander
having gently rapped on the framework at the side and
the panel delaying to run back he stamped his foot with
some irritation.
Into the silence that till his disappearance held the
company in breathlessness Madame Krudener, her face
alight, cried:
"Our little Father the Tsar, by order of the holy beings, has decided to demand the pardon of the Prince de
la Moskwa!" Her arms outstretched, she threw herself
into those of the milor! "A Saviour from the North!" she
cried.
It cannot have been ten minutes after that before, in
the buzz of ecstasy and repose that was over that assembly, the young George Feilding, who had been talking
to a young girl, ran suddenly to the milor and, exclaiming that he had found his Helene, had darted from the
room. They had, the young girl and he, probably been
talking of the joy that would be in the household of
Aglae and no doubt Mlle. Decazes had said that Helene de
Frejus too would be overjoyed in that house. Gradually,
following the young man, the other guests had drifted
away until, the milor ordering Gatti to find George Feilding, the milor and the lady were left alone.
A certain delicacy-nay, a certain dread, had prevented Gatti from announcing the tidings of the promised




A  Little Less than Gods           323
pardon to Madame Agla6 and Helene. In the ordinary
course of events he would have been first influenced by
the idea that his patron should give the news of his own
achievement in his own person. Then he would have been
influenced by the remembrance that these two women
were in great anxiety and he might have abandoned the
sentimental interests of Mr. Smith and have told them,
swiftly, and at the first moment.
But fear had restrained him.... Looking back at
those two as he went out of the door, Judas had seemed to
wink at him! The atmosphere had been hot with passions. The ill-temper of the Tsar had left behind him a
heavy malaise. Behind those two as they faced each other
had appeared a great, blazing ikon that Felice had not
before observed; but Madame Krudener had-or had access to-a vast store of these objects and they were
changed very frequently. This was an image with figures
very nearly life-size. A silver Christ walked upon a lapislazuli sea with bubbles of pearls; Peter sank to his middle at the side of the Redeemer, and Judas, known by his
absence of halo and scarlet hair and beard, regarded Peter
with a leer.... This leer he had turned upon Gatti as
he turned back at the door: nay, he had turned the leer
first upon that couple and had then looked into Gatti's
eyes...
Dusk had now long since fallen in the tall sewing-room
of Madame Aglae, and Helene had lit a candle in a tall
brass standard at her side. She sewed and sewed, her
head bent over her coarse, greyish stuff, the little finger
of her right hand curled above the others as she drew




324       A  Little Less than Gods
the long threads to their extreme lengths. She said:
"You have slept, my dear Felice. You were tired!"
He exclaimed: "No! No!" and shivered. "We must go
to Corte. In Corte there is sun.... Was not the milor
here?"
She said no, no one had disturbed them.
He said: "I am afraid! I am afraid! "-he did not know
why-and added: "the 10th of November is an illomened day."
It came suddenly to his lips to say:
"Dearest Helene, if mercy were shown..." But he
did not dare. He said: "Let us go to Corte, you and I.
This is no place for soft human flesh. People have eyes
like pebbles and the air is hard."
She said: "If there was a convent with rules of perpetual silence I would go there and you could wear away
your life beneath the walls."
He said: "There is the convent on the wall; I do not
know the order, but it was from one of the windows that
the enemy held out our general's son when we Corsicans
were taking the city by storm from the oppressors....
It is an old story. But I believe it is a sufficiently strict
congregation. No one ever sees the sisters once they enter
the walls. Not even when they are buried, and it is said
they dig their own graves on the day they take the veil."
"Why," she said, "if there were a shop you could make
into a cafe by the convent gate and I were within you
might listen for my passing bell."
He said: "Oh Helerne! Oh, Helene!... If mercy now
is shown us-to this household-will you not show mercy
to your lover?"




A  Little Less than Gods           325
She cried out and stood up, dropping her sewing to her
feet.
"It is very painful," he said, "to perceive daily the torture of a fine young man!"
She said: "No, no, no, no!" her face taking on an
aspect of terror. "I knew," she said, "that you must come
to that-that that has been on your tongue this whole
afternoon."
"Madonna Helene!" he said, " the good are also merciful. In what has this young man offended you?"
She said: "In that he is... In that he is my...
He is too..." Her eyes stared from her lids; she surveyed him harshly:
"Ha, Felice," she said, "it is true that you are an emissary of your patron: but your patron is anti-Christ.
He too has tempted and tempted me. Is my soul nothing
to you that you would sacrifice it to my... to my
lover? Is his then nothing to you!..."
It had shocked him to hear Mr. Assheton Smith called
anti-Christ-not that he did not think that might be the
case. Madame de Krudener had called him the Saviour
from the North. She had, he knew, suggested that the
milor should found a colony in an isle in the Mediterranean there to await and enact the second coming....
A Saviour from the North might well be anti-Christ!
"No, no!" he said, "I am no emissary from Mr. Assheton Smith; in truth he so forces you to his will that
there is no knowing.."
He fumbled in the pocket that was under his pinned
left sleeve.
"See," he said. He had produced with an air of repul



326


A Little Less than Gods


sion a crumpled object of white satin. "It is that I am to
wear in my hat tomorrow at the milor's compulsion. And
I am to kiss the hands of the Duc Decazes-and the other
white, gouty ones.... At the milor's compulsion!"
He added hoarsely: "And you, I shall see often, Ma.
donna Helene, for as I told you-or maybe I did not tell
you, I am to command the guard over your husband in
jail." He added: "What this all is I do not know. But
this I tell you... If you will go with your lover to Ajaccio-to Ajaccio where He was born... I will tell your
husband you are gone to the Indies."
She cried out: "Oh, villain! Villain! Villain!"
"Why," he said, "if I am put by the milor and the
Comte Decazes as guard to your husband it may well be
that your husband is to escape. Then you must go away
to have the enjoyment of your lover. I can understand
that whilst your husband lies under sentence of death
your delicacy may well keep you from his rival. But suppose he is to live.... I do not know that he is to livebut what else is one to think. He owes the ransoms of
three kings to the milor; the Comte Decazes is a poor
man; Louis is the will-less subject of his minion the
Comte Decazes... An escape is not a pardon. Let the
Ultras rage as they will it is on me rather than on the
King that their wrath must fall and my back is broad
enough to bear their wrath for the sake of the King and
of France...."
She came up to him and gripped him by his own wrist.
"Listen, Felice!" she said, thought she had not listened
to him. "Listen well to me. Do you know the story of the
joyous companion-who was in effect St. Peter? How he




A Little Less than Gods


327


took the dead daughter of the king and mincing her flesh
and 'oiling her bones, made of them all a paste and,
moulding them together, she came alive again."
He said: "That is horrible. I warrant it is a German
story. But what is that to me?"
She said: "Only this: that if you were St. Peter and.so moulded me again I could not go to my lover's arms."
He exclaimed: "What? What?"
She said: "If you were God you could not do it!"
He said: "To God all things are possible!"
She answered: "Not that!"
He remained pondering for a long time. The great
house was silent all round them in the gloom of the
November night. She had scissors hanging by a tape to
the black girdle of her high-waisted black gown.
"If he were your father..." he speculated blankly at
last. "If you had borne him...." He muttered: "M'm
M'm.... M'm..." At last he erected his spine:
"Why, yes," he said, "you must go into a convent!"
Madame Ney came into the deep shadows that hung like
black cobwebs about the tall door. Her white handkerchief that she held in her hand was the most visible point
of her tall person that the shadows seemed to render
taller. She begged Felice to go to the milor: he appeared
to be seriously deranged.
He was much disturbed because there seemed to be no
possibility that the Marshal should not go before the
Peers of France for a trial. He had had an almost certainty that it would be otherwise after the military court
had refused to try him. Now there appeared to be no
hope.




CHAPTER FOUR


G EORGE FEILDING ran with extraordinary speed
towards the black figure of Madame de Frejus that
in the winter morning came over the frozen grass towards
him. She was dressed with a tremendous amplitude of
black skirt; a high hunting hat like a man's except that
the broad brim turned down and waved a little, letting
drop a thick black veil that hid her features. He had
nevertheless known her-at a great distance, as she came
out of the entry of the Little Luxembourg gardens. He
was up against the wall of the Closerie des Lilas, his back
to it. He had been looking, without hope, for assistance.
He had seen the curve of the figure; the way she carried the superfluity of the hunting skirt. Had he not seen
her in the long-grass country?
He ran, panting with apprehension, crying out continuously:
"Go back! You must not come here!" His eyes bulged
from his head like those of a maniac; his mouth hung
open when he did not shout.
The Place in front of the cabaret with its long white
wall was deserted; mist hung about the upper boughs of
the naked trees of the avenue; in the brumous and dim
distances of the road that went down to the Pont St.
Michel were the bearskins and bayonets of a squad of
soldiers. They were disappearing very slowly, marching
328




A  Little Less than Gods'          329
desultorily, their immensely tall bearskins bent forward as
if they pondered dejectedly or were very weary. They
might well. No man among them would ever hold up his
head again.
He ran and ran, for it seemed an age of running, his
soles beating on the grey, frozen turf. There was rime in
the blades of grass. He ran for an age; the soldiers had
marched off-an age ago. It must have been dreadful to
stand before that wall in that cold.... But the dead
man's hand when he touched it had been tepid. His mind
hummed: "And when the doughty Douglas saw the Percy
die..." A pace, pace, pace of his soles. "He took the
dead man by the hand..." A pace, pace, pace of his
soles. What a devil Assheton Smith was!... He took
the dead man by the hand... And cried 'Ah wae is
me! Pace, pace, pace!... Well, George Feilding had
taken the dead man by the hand! No man could say he
had not!
The sense of the corpse behind his back was a living
thing; he felt its influences boring between his shoulders.
Lying in the form of a cross, the head away from the wall,
the face to the sky! He must have twisted round in falling, for he had faced his butchers all right. You would
have thought he must have fallen on his face.... His
figure had been obscured by the smoke of the muskets....But you had not dared to look! You stood with
averted glance.... No, with head hanging.... The
high hat-it was queer to observe-had fallen forward a
full three yards as if it desired to be first in the eyes
of the spectators.... Well, it was prominent enough.
As alive as its late owner.... More intact certainly!




330     - A  Little Less than Gods
But perhaps Assheton Smith was not a devil! Somebody must die: it was evident somebody must die I
Then
He was in front of Helene-a black column, the face
invisible on account of the black veil. You saw strange
dim eyes, unknown dim features. He was panting and
shouting like a lunatic but within he was calm.... Why
must you have the torture of being calm within when
your outside impulses forced you to behave like a lunatic?
He was shouting: "Turn round. I order you to go
back": he was holding his hat, the inside towards her,
right in front of her face.... Hat by Chickering and
Fogg! The dead man's hat too probably displayed the
lion and unicorn of that celebrated maker. No, it did not
display it to the sky. It was his face that tranquilly inspected the low clouds... tranquilly and with austerity.
Helene de Frejus swayed a little back on her fixed feet
-as a matador does before the charge of a bull. She was
avoiding his hat.... Well, it must be stifling to have a
hat held before your face. He exclaimed:
"Turn round. Let us go back to the garden!"
His hand stretched itself out-his right hand. It was
the left that held the hat. His voice said for him:
"Oh, He'le'nelI"
She shrank her whole body back, avoiding the pollution of his touch.
She said, with her black-gloved hand over her heart:
"No one could have known I was coming here!"
"No," he said, "I came here by an order. For a differ,
ent purpose.... Turn back.... If I had known you




A  Little Less than Gods           33I
were coming here I should have respected..." He said:
"But no! I should not have respected your privacy. You
have no right to privacy from me!"
The dead figure, extended behind him, overwhelmed
his mind. He knew nothing of perspective. Was it visible
from where they stood? He dare not turn round for fear
her glance should follow his.... From there perhaps
she could see only the top of the head concealing the
trunk. Perhaps not the feet that stuck up.... The hat,
for sure. By Chickering and Fogg.   Or perhaps she
could see nothing because of her black veil. It blew out
a little each time she breathed....
It was extraordinary to be confronted by the column of
ebony that she made-as if within a cylinder there
breathed an object of which one had once had the intimate thoughts but that was now gone strange-as milk
goes sour when there is lightning in the air.
He said: "I will have you turn round. We will go into
ihe park together. You and I have things to talk of."
He said: "You shall turn."
She exclaimed: "You will allow me to pass!"
He cried out: "Never! Never! Never!"
Or only over his dead body, as they say! She however
could not kill him.
She said, curiously, as if it were a threat, her breath
blowing out her veil twice: "I was going to the garden of
the Closerie, my life having ended there."
He said: "You cannot go there now. You must wait.
An hour! Two hours! Then you can go."
She said: "I cannot wait an hour. I must go. If not I




332       A  Little Less than Gods
cannot go for the last time to the spot where for the last
time, too, I thought of you with love and my life
ended."
Her voice was curious: level; passionless; without inflections; like the fluting of a bird. It was perhaps the
veil that gave the impression that a dead woman was
speaking.
She said: "My husband is... was... How do I
know? To be murdered at nine..
He exclaimed: "It is striking the quarter.... You
knew then that he..." A mellow bell behind his back
said through the freezing air: "Time... is... fly...ing!"
She said: "Yes.... Last night, past midnight, Mr.
Assheton Smith came to me and gave me the news..
Did you not know?... I bade my husband farewell at
one and swore to him that I would not stay an hour in
this city after his death. So I must go. Beside Gatti awaits
me and the horses cannot stand in this frost.... Did
you not know that Frederick was to... is.
He stammered: "I did not know.... I d-d-do!" He
was shivering or stammering.
He had the extraordinary sense that behind him the
corpse, lying cruciform as Jesuits do before they take
their vows, was grinning at his dilemma. As skulls grin!
She said: "I told my husband my plans before I left
him. He was, you know, a very brave man. The bravest of
the brave."
At that the boy screamed.
"Not that at least...."
"I may well say that," she answered; "he took here the




A Little Less than Gods


333


place of Michael Ney. Why should he not also have his
sobriquet?"
George Feilding staggered back.
"You knew..." he said, "yet you could come. Here!"
"Why," she said, "it is natural-it is perhaps seemly
-before going on a long journey to pay tribute to one's
dead.     To the living dead and the dead.  You
are dead to me, you know... I wished to go to the last
place in which for the last time I thought-oh forgive
me, God of mercy! -of you with the love of the body.. But if you will not let me pass, let us go back....
He was unwilling to go and leave that dead man alone.
How could he be left lonely? It was his wife's place to
cleanse the clotted blood from the poor chestnut hair;
to wash the poor body-oh my God, oh my God! To compose the features.... How could the late Frejus lie
there and so grin at the heavens? But in effect he did not
grin. He appeared commanding and austere. It was
he, George Feilding, who had imagined the grin.... As
he had grinned in past days, seeing Helene and himself
come out of a bosquet or shrubbery.
She said: "Come. Let us go back. Since you are here
you may walk with me. It is sin, but if God is to be
moved by prayers it shall be my last."
- He exclaimed: "How can you style it as a sin? That
is a question of... of..."
Ought she then not to imprint the last salute?..
He was about to say: "Do you not know that the body of
your late husband lies there?" But it was evident that
she did not know what lay before the blank wall. He
asked instead:




334       A  Little Less than Gods
"If you go so soon you cannot play your last... respect... tribute... salute...
"Why," she answered, "you cannot keep me in this accursed city on that pretext. Frejus swore me-he swore
me on the gospels-that I would not look upon his face
after he was dead. He said that the faces of the guillotined... In short he had a horror.... He need not have.
*.. What Margaret Roper could do I could...." She
said: "Let us talk of indifferent things.... You go
where and when?..."
He said: "Mr. Assheton Smith awaits me with a berline at the Porte St. Denis."
"Then you go to Calais or Havre de Grace...
He said: "To Havre...
She exclaimed quickly: "Do not tell me. I know. I
know. You go to le Havre. And the Colemans await you
with a ship. That is they will await you unless a fair
wind springs up. And Elizabeth Coleman in her dimities
and furs shall spend day and night in the chapel of St.
Nicholas-le-Havre praying that a fair wind shall not
spring up till you are aboard their ship.... You see I
know. It is not proper to torture me.... But it is no
torture to me.... Only it is a last straw that might
have been spared me....
He said: "Bessie Coleman is a child.... Seventeen
*.. Eighteen... I do not know. A little sister I"
She swung on her heel and pointed with her riding
crop.
"Come, let us go," she said. "The good Felice awaits
me with the horses at the north entrance to the Little
Luxembourg. We shall ride south... to Corsica..




A  Little Less than Gods           335
He could not but exclaim: "To the island of Corsica! "
"Why, it is an island! " she said. They were now walking and a measure of calmness came to him as it left
her. "It began with an island-and it shall end with an
island. That is to say that it is your islanders that have
ended what He began.... And so I go to an island as
you to a Continent of Colemans! But for me a convent:
Colemans, Continents, Convents.... It is in that way
that the world wags..
He began to say: "I beseech you... I swear to
you... I will wait..
She tore suddenly the veil from her face, flinging it
back over her hat.
"You shall not wait," she cried, "I enjoin upon you
not to wait. I command you not to wait." He had not
dared to look at her face.... "Why, look me in the
face! " she said. "You shall not see me look a hag because
of five months of waiting under the shadow of death.
I looked at my face this morning in a glass! "
Her face was pale, a little square with the determination of her closed jaws; her brown eyes were fixed upon
him and dire.
"Why no," she said hollowly, "you shall not wait for
me.... I could spit in your face if you said again that
you would.... Merciful God, what do I say? The sins
of the fathers.... Pour out every drop of blood from
your warm veins; cleanse your soul as if with sand and
scouring paper; burn up your flesh... For the sin you
have committed.... And I will do the same. But have
twenty children by Elizabeth Coleman and twenty by




336       A  Little Less than Gods
your negresses.... Oh you poor oaf... you poor
brother-oaf!"
He said: "In the name of Heaven if there has been
reported of me to you...
"Why, nothing has been reported to me of you," she
said. "Your patron has pleaded... But he knows that
the worst has been reported to me of you so I do not
know how he dares plead....
She went on again suddenly: "You men are unconscionable blunderers-all save your Mr. Patron Smith
who is wicked, but not without heart. Or with too much
heart.... Here at the beginning of my route you check
me! My route was to have been a farewell. To you first,
here in this cabaret."
He exclaimed: "But why here? Why here of all the
spots in the world?"
She said: "You forget. Oh man of short memories..
It was here you should have come on the last day of my
life, which was the 7th of July in this year of grace. So
since you did not come I cut you out of my life, falling
down on the floor. Had you been here-with your pure,
stupid, earnest eyes; with your bright and varnished apple cheeks and your voice... Oh merciful Creator and
Father of us all; it shakes me still.  Had you been
here my mother might have died; my... your father
might have.... There is however no knowing what
these masterful, strong-drinking men may or may not do!
But my husband surely would have had himself earlier
guillotined...."
"Oh Christ!" the boy cried, "in Christ's name. Your
husband was not guillotined. He was shot and died like




A Little Less than Gods


337


a gentleman. After he was dead I took him by the hand!"
She let her skirts fall all round her on the ground; she
let fall her riding-crop; her knees appeared to give way
but she got to a seat that was near behind her.
"Oh, before the accursed wall!" she said. "His body
lies there!"
"You could not come to it now," he exclaimed. "See,
there are people crowding round."
"You would not let me come to him!" she said. "But
none the less I will be the first to pray for his poor soul!"
She clasped indeed her hands and sat with her pale lips
moving. "Thus," she said, "I shall be to my life's endpraying for him-and you!"
"It is enough to appal Tamburlaine, this carnival of
blood," the young man said.
She pointed suddenly to a seat that was three away and
in front of the one where they sat. The dreary condensations of the hoar-frost from the naked branches made
pools in the gravel around it.
"It was there he sat," she said, "when he gave himself
for Michael Ney. Now he is dead."
She cried out: "And poor Aglae. And poor Michael.
Are we to think of no one but ourselves?"
Later she said: "It is strange. Fate wills that here I
should hear how my husband Frederick died in front of
the wall. But Michael Ney may well be standing before
his butchers now and I shall not hear of it these many
days. When I saw Michael Ney last night he kissed me on
the forehead. I said: 'Your Highness... mon Marechal..' He said: 'Call me Michael Ney, soon to be
a little dust!'... He was not one to believe the false




338       A  Little Less than Gods
promises of your patron, who swore to save him."
The young man was saying with an appalled voice:
"He said that- 'Soon to be a little dust!' Those words?
Then..."'
"When I told my husband, who was in the cell beside
him-though I hardly could tell him for the tears, he was
full of envy of Michael's saying... he said it was a
proud thing to be able to say. He wished he might have
the right to say that as he died! "
The young man stood appalled: those very words had
been the last words of Frederick Scheffauer, Baron de
Frejus, who lay dead behind him. He had imagined his
ears to deceive him at the time, but now he was convinced.... And Frejus had asked for a tombstone bearing the
one word: "Amicus!"-a friend. But then...
"I went last night to the Conciergerie with Aglae," she
said musingly. "But I came away alone because she had
gone already... to the Tuileries, Felice said, to pray
for mercy.... And now I shall never see Agla6 again. I
loved her but I shall never see her again."
He exclaimed: "Not never! Oh, not never!"
She answered: "Oh yes, sin such as mine, sin nameless
and unmentionable that daily I commit-and, oh, brother,
brother! at the instance of intolerable tortures of the
spirit-sin such as mine demands the immuring of the
penitent-but oh, the impenitent, the impenitent. As yet
the impenitent... What else could I, say to you, beloved of my..
"I shall go mad..." he cried out. "There are too
many... too many strains. Bethink you if you can in
conscience... From loyalty to a man... Or in




A Little Less than Gods


339


memory of a man... God forbid that I should in any
way detract from the memory of a man who was so
so gay!... I tell you he died gay....
She had recovered herself, clenching her hands tight.
"Yes, he was gay," she said. "'Who rides so late along
the way... Compagnon de la Majolaine, Gai, gai, sur
le quai....' He hummed that in preference to all other
tunes!" She said: "Come here! Sit beside me! Let us sit
like brother and sister as we are to be." She moved her
face close, her eyes gazing into his so that a fluid influence
from them seemed to pervade his whole being.
"You are to understand," she said, "if it will console
your poor heart, that it is not loyalty to any other man
that could have kept me from your beloved arms!
But I am one that has sinned so deeply and in a manner
so horrible that I am to be abhorred down the ages like
the accursed demi-gods of ZEschylus.... I am one
whose touch will contaminate you and send you to hell
amongst the shivering souls of our fathers.... I am
one, the one creature in all the world that lives and
breathes and loves, that you may not love.... I am
the one of all the world between whom and your father's
son stands the angel with the flaming sword....
He stretched out his arms but she shrank to the furthest end of the seat. "Nay, do not touch me! " she cried
out. "No! No! No!"
He said: "You talk of hell, though before God I cannot understand either what you say or how sin can now
come into our relations.... But if our love made hell
quiver to its fundament I cannot think that it could be
more torture than this.... Why, hell must be simple




340


A Little Less than Gods


and sane. But not all the pictures of the Florentine, not
all the imaginations of-I do not remember his name...
This is a madness; this is torture. I do not know of
what I may speak to you....
"How do you come here?" she asked. "What fiend sent
you here to torment me? I never asked it. I would as
soon have a solitary hell as one enhanced by the sharing."
"It was Assheton Smith sent me. Bidding me be at
nine by the wall at the Closerie des Lilas and report to
him what I saw there. Why, I do not know... Why
should he send me to be a witness of the murder of your
husband?"
"Tell me then, at least, how he died I"
He told her-but though the event itself stamped itself
irrevocably on his memory he never remembered after
that what he had told her. There were things that in
prudence he must conceal, surmises he might make, surmises he must keep to himself. But whether he observed
them or not he never knew; the passion of love was overwhelming him in her presence....
He had been awakened towards four that morning by
Mr. Assheton Smith in the chamber in which he slept in
that great man's house. The milor, who was graver than
usual, bade him direct his valet as to the packing of all
his valises, for they were to start for le Havre that day at
ten. He had said that that must mean that Marshal Ney
was doomed, since they had only stayed to await the issue
of the trial that had taken place the day before. Mr. Smith
had said: "No! No! Not necessarily. I beg you to calm
yourself."




A Little Less than Gods


341


He had begged or ordered the young man to betakV
himself towards half past eight to the open Place at the
Closerie des Lilas, there to see what he should see and
then to come with all speed to the Porte St. Denis where a
travelling berline should be awaiting them with his
valises.... His heavy cases with implements, his two
hunters, his tools, seeds, plate, furnishings and the like
had already gone to Havre along with the Colemans, to
their ship which they owned and which was bound for
New Orleans. He was to go into exile at least nobly
equipped and with the escort as far as le Havre of the
finest gentleman in Europe.
So half past eight had seen him on the empty Place.
He had taken coffee within the estaminet and when he
came out there was already some company and a squad of
infantry-the General Lamoriciere, whose business it was
to see that the behests of the Provost Marshal were being carried out, the Duc de la Force, other Ultra-Loyalists
whom he knew by sight and the Berryers, father and son,
the advocates who had defended the Marshal at his trials.
And immediately at hand, approaching slowly, was a
covered two-horse fiacre that was surrounded by not very
soldierly soldiers and that had on its box an unmoved
cocher and Gatti di Vivario, a white cockade in his shako.
Gatti di Vivario had scrambled limply down from the
box and, with the aspect of a commanding officer, had
lined the men up in a double hedge from the fly door to
where General Lamoriciere stood with the squad of men.
The young man had noticed that the number of the fiacre
had been 413. The soldiers were singularly unsoldierly.
At that H6elne had commented that, in the last days,




342


A Little Less than Gods


the real soldiers guarding the Conciergerie had been replaced by young Ultras dressed as members of the royal
bodyguard, so great had been the fear that, if the soldiers
of the old Empire who were set to guard Ney retained
that function, they might either let the Marshal escape or
foment a revolution in the garrison of the capital. Gatti
di Vivario had stated to her that he had only consented
to accept the distasteful task of commanding the guard
over the prisoners in order to ensure that these Ultras
should do them no bodily harm or offer them any insults.
As a matter of fact it might be strongly suspected that
none of the guards had ever seen Marshal Ney before
a week preceding his trial....
That he was about to witness a military execution the
young man was fully confident by the time he was five
minutes out of the estamninet. His heart beat troublesomely
at the thought that the victim might be Ney himself. The
circumstances of the execution might seem very strangeon that solitary space, with so little pomp or seriousness,
the Ultra gentry laughing continuously amongst themselves. But when you remembered the state of Paris, the
seething discontent not only of Napoleon's old soldiers but
that of the redoubtable workpeople in the Faubourg St. *
Antoine, there was little to be wondered at if the Royalists had decided to do their foul work in circumstances of
as much secrecy as possible.
But it had been the husband of Helene that he recognized in the bulky cloaked figure that descended from the
hearse-like conveyance into the mists of early morning.
There had ensued preliminaries that, in his emotion, he
had not followed. The first thing that had struck him was




A  Little Less than Gods            343
that General Lamoriciere approached the Duc de la Force
and offered him his sword.
"I had suggested to your Highness," he said in a
resonant voice, "this place as a good one for the execution
of a prisoner of no note at a time when the sight of executions too frequently excite the people of Paris. But now
that I see who the prisoner is I refuse to preside at this
function and the officer in command of the firing squad
refuses to give the command to fire. We both request leave
to abandon the uniforms that we wear."
"Why," said the Duc, "it is no difficult matter to give
a command to fire a gun, so I will even do it myself and
thank you for tlie opportunity "
"The General Lamoriciere was the officer that arrested
poor Frejus on that bench," Helene said. "No doubt that
was what gave him the idea that this was a good solitary
spot for the execution, just as that memory brought me
here on the last moment before my departure."
So they had shot Frejus by the ordinary process of
military execution. When they had asked him if he had
any requests he had answered at first in words that
Feilding had only half caught.... "Write me down
Michael Ney"... or it might have been Frederick de
Frejus!... "soon to be a little dust!" Then Feilding
had caught his phrases when he had asked that Madame
Ney should be requested to inscribe the one word Amicus
on his tombstone-as who should say "my friend," or the
friend who, in effect, gave his life for the Marshal.
He had stood to be shot very gallantly, a smile upon
his lips. At the actual moment the young man had looked
down at the ground.




344       A  Little Less than Gods
Helene had leaned forward to listen, her lips parted, her
eyes now and then filling with tears. But at the last:
"Oh, my friend," she said, "what an end is this for all
our glories and our demi-gods!" She was peaking in
French when her voice was at its most beautiful and moving. "And I must go backwards through them to come to
the place where I must be laid in the grave. From here
to Malmaison, from there to Montereau, to Dijon, to
Lyons..... Oh, my friend, my friend, what did we not
see in our scintillating progress?...
She laid suddenly her hand upon his wrist.
"Oh think," she said, "of that slope before Melun, in
its deathless silence.. "
It was terrible-terrible indeed as to stand before an
army set in array-to that young man to watch her eager,
suddenly lit up face with the eyes that shone and gazed
beyond him.
His perturbations were insupportable. Was he to tell her
what her husband's last words had really been and the
construction that unavoidably must be put in that case on
them and the situation? She was going away; she might
never learn. But if he told her might that not re-awaken
the admiration for that man that he was certain was the
cause of her denying herself to him? And he was now at
his last minute. At his last minute....
She was talking of the morning-it had been the 30th of
March-when they had stood side by side on a great
gentle declivity that led down to Melun, all but a plain
below them. Across below them were troops-endless
troops in line, the bayonets sparkling, the sound of music
coming to them.




A Little Less than Gods


345


All that grey country had lain breathless, the army with
its flanking batteries lying across the road to Paris. It
went down to them as a ribbon might unroll on the slope
of a desk and they were to do battle to close that road to
the demi-god and his legions.
"There was not a sound, you remember!" she said.
"You said the very fowls of the air forgot their courtships in the boughs!" They had stood on the edge of the
forest knowing nothing of what was to come-on the edge
of the forest very close to the road. Hand in hand in their
-breathlessness! The thunder of guns might burst from
among the trees, or aligned horse or sullenly progressing lines of men in dark blue! One's heart became a
pain!
Then there had come a little jingle... a little, little
jingle from a distance behind. A roll of wheels: it went
so quick.
"Oh friend, friend, do you not see them still. Is it in
truth all gone? That cannot be." She gripped his hand
closely, closely.... A small clatter of hoofs. A carriage
and a few hussars... and he and Bertrand and Drouet
and down, down the hill with the rapidity of thought....Don't you remember, don't you remember?.
The hussars stayed by us. They were all alone under the
eyes of a hundred thousand men arrayed to destroy them.
And the lines breaking up... and the cries coming up
to us.... And now... all gone. All that glory. All
those demi-gods!"
His arms gripped her furiously; he was pouring kisses
on her lips, her lids, her brows, her lips again. Bliss came
down upon him. With his right hand behind her head




346       A  Little Less than Gods
he forced her lips against his. They responded. Her cheek,
were wet with tears. She lay in his arms....
And then... it was unbelievable the force she ex
erted to push herself from him. She stood, her skirt all
around on the ground, her hat pushed back, her haih
dishevelled beneath the brim. Her eyes blazed at him as if
they too possessed an electric force of repulsion. She
stood, her mouth half open, panting for breath.
"What have you done? What have you done?" she cried
out, "Accursed, accursed, accursed  fool that you
are...
The knowledge came to him hardly with her words; it
had forced itself into him from her gestures and her eyes,
She had gone, wavering away, supporting herself by
tree after tree before he again looked at the place where
she had been.




L'ENVOI


THE great berline lumbered slowly up the steep slope
and swayed monstrously on the water-torn winter
road that leads beside the long, blank park wall of the
chateau of Bussy-St. Georges. The rain that till lately
had deluged the windows of the conveyance had dried on
them; far away, a thin waft of opalescent cloud heralded
the December sunset across the bare downland. A horseman came at full gallop following them, and having hailed
to the driver to stop rapped with the handle of his crop
on the closed off-window. The horseman came down on
the road as the window dropped. He exclaimed:
"Come out, George, and let us walk awhile. This is a
lonely spot and convenient for the Marshal to change his
clothes." He called into the carriage: "Monsieur, Madame
Aglae was released within the half-hour. She is safe in her
own house and bade me bid you again Godspeed for her
and your children I"
Mr. Assheton Smith undid the collar of his great mantle
to give himself air and shook his hat to get rid of the raindrops on the beaver. When George Feilding descended at
his side they walked pensively along a rutty field-path
that led over the wet down; the beautiful chestnut followed them, its nostrils continually almost brushing its
naster's hands that were clasped behind his back.
"UTomorrow to the Quorn!" Mr. Assheton Smith said.
347




348


A Little Less than Gods


"What would you not give, my lad, to have within four
days a gallop in our great fields of the grass countries?... It is the only sensible life....
George Feilding preserved a long silence, his head
hanging on his chest, his face without expression.
"Poor lad!" Mr. Smith said. "Yet I understand they
can give you some notable gallops in Louisiana. The
hounds are Pytchley-bred; but if you cannot have Quorn,
Pytchley will serve the turn." Since the young man maintained his silence he began again. "Your father is said to
have had the run of the season last Saturday was a sennight.... An old dog fox with a grey-tufted tail! There
is an account of the run in Galignani's Messenger and
your father is spoken of encomiastically!"
George said: "My father is one of the last men I desire
to hear spoken of with encomium at this moment, and if
this is what the chase of the fox leads to I had as lief never
look upon a hound again."
Mr. Assheton Smith exclaimed:
"How have Tufter and Merrylegs and Old Towler and
the rest contributed to your predicament?.. "
"Why," George answered with passion, "bawling after
the hounds leads to drunkenness, drunkenness to lechery,
lechery to incest and worse.... And you will all be
demi-gods?... Where are we? What do we do here?"
"You do not know where you are?" Mr. Smith asked.
"You are on the road to Havre by roundabout ways and
so to the Americas by ship!"
George said: "Aye?... That is the way of it? You
disposed of the banker; now you dispose of me and..




A  Little Less than Gods           349
Was that Ney in the fly with me?... Well then, you
dispose...f Ney too.... My father has robbed me monstrously because I let him cut the entail. He would have
had my land on Barbados if I had not read the deeds till
I was blind!"
Mr. Assheton Smith exclaimed: "I call to your attention that you have called my berline a 'fly,' but it is the
best appointed travelling carriage in Europe. Napoleon
himself envied me its possession, yet you style it a
'fly'! "
"I did not know it was your berline," George said; "I
did not know where I. was nor how I came there.... I
saw the banker murdered. I met his wife.... You had
appointed the Porte St. Denis for a rendezvous. I do not
know how I came there.".
"It is true you were monstrous glum when you came
there," Mr. Assheton Smith said. "You were in the cart of
a peasant that was going back to St. Denis from Paris
market."
"Ah," George said, "I remember a hairy man with one
eye that said he had seen King Louis. King Louis lay at
St. Denis on the night before his entry into Paris. It is a
pity he is not in the tomb of his ancestors who lie there."
"I too," Mr. Smith maintained, "have had a monstrous
active day.... There is a snifter of rain coming. Let
us see if these trees will shelter us."
There was a small plantation of wind-driven low trees
at the top of the slope they had mounted and in the
plantation were a shepherd's hut that smelt vilely and a
stone crucifix with a mossy-green Christ dependent from




350       A  Little Less than Gods
its cross. Mr. Smith led his horse into the hut for he did
not like his saddle to be wetted; but he emerged himself,
for weather was nothing to him. He approached and inspected the crucifix, said that the planting of these objects
in solitary places was a not disagreeable superstition and
that he liked to see shepherdesses kneeling on their steps
and telling their beads. Then he repeated that he too had
had a monstrous busy day. From four in the morning,
when he had awakened George, he had not sat down but
had been on his feet or in the saddle.
"Well, you have had a worse day than I," George said.
"God forgive me for saying a worse day since He appointed this day for my punishment upon earth. But you
have run about more. For me I slept in the carriage. I will
admit that your berline is comfortable. If you like I will
declare that there cannot be better springs in Europe." He
added:
"I should have slept better if the monstrous woman
you provided for my companionship had not repeatedly
awaked me to inquire where was her sword. At one place
-I think it was Pomponne-where we changed horses
she was for going back to get her sword. I did not know
if it was I or she that was mad." He added: "Forgive me.
It is your adventures that I must hear, not you mine. I
am perhaps mad!"
"Why," Mr. Smith said, "at four I rose. At five I assumed a French general's uniform that had been provided
me by my friend Decazes and who had sent me also a
trooper to smoothe my way. By six I was at Madame
Ney's...."
"By heavens!" the young man exclaimed, "how could




A  Little Less than Gods           35I
you find it in your heart to go there?... You went perhaps also to the Hotel Monchelu!"
Mr. Smith looked at the young man with concern: even
with anxiety.
"If," he said, "the mention of these places-the associations-so affect you I had better not proceed....
"Why," the young man said, "you forget we had a
monstrously painful scene in the salon of Madame Agla6....It appeared to me to be you that were that day mad
with concern. As today I am. But even so I could not go
to that house again! "
Mr. Smith had grown a little pallid, his face peaked.
"You are perhaps not aware," he said, "that that lady
finally decided to follow the chimaxra called Alexander!"
George said: "No. I was not aware of it. You did not
honour me with your confidence!"
"Why, no," Mr. Smith said, "that is not the way it was.
I was anxious after a moment of weakness which you
witnessed to bear myself with stoicism so great that you
should not yourself divine the news. I tell it you now and
you perceive my calm... Madame de Krudener left
Paris for Russia on the twentieth of November-ten days
after that painful affair with Alexander and twenty-seven
days before this date."
"Why, you have made progress since then," George
said; "I think your condition was that day more pitiable
than my own. It is not so today! "
"Come," Mr. Smith said, "let us hold to the business in
hand or we shall go mad... I cannot understand a lady... any lady... preferring the Tsar of Russia to an
English gentleman... Madame however seems to have




352


A Little Less than Gods


exhibited that preference.... I confess that at the time
it mortified me I"
George said: "This is all very difficult to understand.... Let us summarize.... I am dazed because my
sister-my spouse, as the Bible says, has turned out to
be so much my sister and so little my spouse..... You,
you burst into the salon-on the ninth or tenth of November, a month or so ago, after the Court Martial had declared its incompetence to try the Marshal who is now
changing from woman's to man's clothes in your berline...."
Mr. Assheton Smith said: "Let us try to retain some
sanity.... "
His chestnut whinnied disquietedly from the shepherd's
hut.
"Josiah!" Mr. Smith said-Josiah was the chestnut's
name —"it will not be long now!" He said: "At any rate,
say what you may, I have saved the life of the Prince de la
Moskwa!"
"It seems," the boy said, "rather like going out of the
back door when you might have entered by the front
porch I"
"Why," the Master of the Quorn exclaimed, "I might
have had a free pardon from Alexander, for the Marshall"
"The Tsar found you in Madame de Krudener's arms I "
the boy said. "He was bringing his demand for the free
pardon of the Marshal when he found you in Madame de
Krudener's embrace I"
Mr. Assheton Smith retained a complete silence. The
boy said:




A  Little Less than Gods           353
"On finding you in Madame de Krudener's arms the
Tsar tore up his application for the free pardon of Marshal Ney! So I say it appears to be an exit by the back
door when you might have entered by the porch...
You sacrificed my Helene's husband so that Ney might
ask for his sword in your berline!"
"The Marshal attaches a great value to his sword,"
Mr. Assheton Smith said. "It was given to him by Bonaparte after Aboukir. It should be the sword of the Prophet
as worn by Achmet Abdullah.... There are inscriptions to that effect upon it!"
"They are worn off!" the boy answered. "What were
we talking about?"
"I went," the milor said, "to the house of Madame
Aglai. I waited without, of course; I did not go into the
salon!... She came. Wonderfully bundled up in
clothes.... It is extraordinary the  ingenuity  of
women!"
"She resembled, no doubt," the boy said, "the figure
with which, since nine, I have sat in your berline!"
"I proceed," the milor said, "in my French general's
uniform with the trooper in the rumble... to the Conciergerie. There I found your friend Gatti di Vivario...
in command of the guard!"
He added, with an attempt after dignity:
"I must tell you I had prepared all this. Every step of
this I had prepared!"
"It would surely have been easier," the boy said, "if
you had not fallen into the arms of Madame de
Krudener I"
"She is a most extraordinary woman!" Mr. Smith said.




354


A Little Less than Gods


"Well?" the younger man had asked.
His mind went back unceasingly to the afternoon of
November 10th.
He had been in the salon of Madame Ney waiting for
her to come and explain to him why she had shut her
house to him when he had desired to see Madame de
Frejus, who was boarding with her. Presumably because
Madame Ney was there, the Alsatian maid had admitted
to that draped salon first Mr. Assheton Smith, then Mr.
Coleman, an English banker, and his American niece, the
daughter of Mr. Coleman's brother.
Mr. Coleman had brought money so that Madame Ney
might defray the costs to the State of her husband's
trial. Anyone is welcome who brings money. But Mr.
Assheton Smith had run about that salon with its busts
of the Marechal and the Marechale Ney as if he had been
mad. He had cried out or suggested or hinted that if he
had been willing to acknowledge-or declare-himself to
be Jesus Christ the Tsar Alexander would have delivered
the free pardon for Marshal Ney to Madame de Krudener. Or he might have acknowledged himself to be
anti-Christ.
Mr. Assheton Smith had said-in that salon-to the
young Feilding:
"You have several times called me demi-god. But to
pretend that I am our Redeemer I am too modest. To
pretend that I am anti-Christ I will not, for I too much
love our Redeemerl"
As far as the young man could tell, Mr. Smith had em



A  Little Less than Gods           355
braced Madame de Krudener. He was the richest, or the
second richest man in the world. The Tsar may have been
richer. Or he may not.
At any rate, the Tsar, coming back with the application
for the pardon of Ney in his pallid hands, had found Mr.
Assheton Smith in the arms of Madame de Krudener.
Apparently Madame de Krudener had cried to Mr. Assheton Smith to declare that he was a supernatural
visitant. In that case all should have been excused by the
Tsar.
But that Mr. Smith had not been able to do. He would
be neither the Redeemer nor anti-Christ, though either
would have done for the lady. He was the Master of the
Quorn Hounds-a prouder title to fame than that of
Ruler of all the Russias!
So the Tsar had simply torn up his letter to Louis
XVIII or Wellington or to whomever it might have been
addressed.
It was that that in the salon of Madame Aglae Mr.
Smith had run about from one to the other trying to say.
It had been a horrible experience! Madame Aglae had
been the only one to keep her head. She had said that it
was no matter-as if the pardoning of one's husband had
been no more than someone tramping on one's toes in a
public diligence. Nevertheless she had stuck to the main
point: Mr. Assheton Smith had sworn that the whole of
his enormous wealth should be devoted to the saving of
Ney whether it meant the bribing of the Comte Decazes
or Louis XVIII himself or any other man. Madame
Aglae had said:




356


A Little Less than Gods


"To that I shall hold you, milor!"
He himself, George Feilding, had desired to do physical
violence to Mr. Smith, but Bessie Coleman had held him
back with both hands on his chest. He, George Feilding,
had taken the view that any man who had come so near
the honourable saving of such another man as Marshal
Ney and had then abandoned that act of saving because
a woman's arms were stretched out to him... any such
man should at least be given a bloody nose..... Bessie
Coleman had held him back.
Well, it appeared that Madame Aglai, dressing herself
up in a wilderness of clothes, had simply gone to the Conciergerie under the escort of Mr. Assheton Smith-Mr.
Assheton Smith being in the costume of a French general.
The Colonel Count dei Gatti di Vivario had done the rest.
The Baron de Frejus had been led out to execution at
eight thirty-but Marshal Ney had descended to a hackney cab in his wife's clothes at seven fifteen. At that time
of the morning it is still dark on the Ile de la Cite..
The awkwardness, the difficulty-according to Mr.
Smith-had lain in the disposal of the hours between
seven fifteen and ten. The Marshal had proved very intractable. He disliked leaving his wife in a cell and he still
more disliked being parted from the sword of the Prophet.
They had stopped the fiacre at the Halles to give him
coffee at seven forty-five; they had driven to, Auteuil,
which they had reached at eight forty...
It was important that the Marshal should not appear in
his men's clothes before his official existence was ended.




A Little Less than Gods


357


For, after nine o'clock or thereabouts, there would be no
more Marshal Ney...
Standing in the light rain, in the leafless grove by the
crucifix near Bussy-St. Georges, Mr. Assheton Smith held
up his crop to bid George Feilding listen to a sound that
was coming to their ears-a full, muffled bell-sound, coming over the saturated ploughlands and the black fallows.
It had grown very cold and the lamentable sound made
them shiver.
"That," Mr. Assheton Smith said, "is the glas-the
passing bell-for Michael Ney, Marshal of France, Duc
d'Elchingen, Prince de la Moskwa...." Mr. Smith,
who did nothing that he did do by halves, had sent couriers ahead of the road that George Feilding and Ney were
to follow. The couriers bore official intimations to the
maires and prefects of the towns concerned-to the effect
that Michael Ney and the rest of it had expiated his
crimes before a squad of infantry in front of the wall of the
Closerie des Lilas at nine o'clock of that morning, the 8th
of December, 1815. Villages that were mostly Bonapartist,
like Bussy-St. Georges, whose naked steeple rose near
George Feilding and Mr. Smith...Bonapartist villages
might sound for him the passing bell; villages where most
inhabitants were Royalists might illuminate their windows.... Michael Ney himself had no existence and
might from then on dress in men's or women's clothes and
wear or lose the sword of the Prophet....
"So that," Mr. Smith said, "I imagine myself not to
have done so illl"
The young man was at that moment full of hatred for
this muscular, fatuous master of foxhounds.




358


A Little Less than Gods


"In what do you imagine yourself to have done so
well, milor?" he asked. "If you had delayed to fold
Madame de Krudener in your arms for half an hour..
for ten minutes... for five... for two... why, you
could have gone to bed with her at six thirty if the Tsar
had not found you in her arms at six.... If you had
delayed two minutes you might have spared humanity a
blot on its name!"
"This," Mr. Smith said, "is a great pother for a very
ordinary man.... Let me ask you this.... If Helene
de Frejus rose up before you here, holding out her arms
and crying that you were her demi-god..."
"I think I should avert my face," George Feilding
said....
"But if," Mr. Smith said, "she did it to the odour of
incense, in the light of ceremonial candles... If she
passed for the mistress of the Tsar whom you despise as
all English gentlemen should despise these foreign potentates... If all mystery, whether of heaven or earth, if
all allurement whether of angels or fiends, attached to the
hem of her garments... If your senses reeled at her
approach... if islands, peninsulas, continents seemed
only to exist in order that you might carry her to them
and there live..."
"Why, I do not know what I should do!" George Feilding said.
"I however do! " said Mr. Assheton Smith. "You would
seek to go out at the back door since you might not by the
ceremonial perron.... You say: it is nothing to have
saved Ney alive since he may not swagger with the sword




A   Little Less than Gods           359
of the Prophet in the mirrored halls of the Tuileries...."
"I do not say that it is nothing," George Feilding said;
"to be sure there is Madame Aglae to be considered! "
"It was I then," Mr. Assheton Smith said, "that considered her. It was I that contrived these schemes that
shall in no way redound to my credit since I may not
avow them-or if I avowed them no one would believe
them.... It was I that perceived the folly of the enemies of Ney in setting to guard him Royalists that had
never seen his face...."
"At the execution of Frejus," the young man said,
"they marched very badly!"
"It was I," Mr. Smith said, "that conceived the idea of
setting Gatti di Vivario as guard of the two prisoners. All
that he had to do was to say to the guards appointed to
guard Ney: "Here is Ney!" when in truth it was Frejus,
and "Here is Frejus!" when in truth it was Ney.... So
Frejus went to the death of Ney and Madame Aglae
changed clothes with her husband, having taken care that
the clothes she had were ample and enormous.... When
they come upon her, Ney being gone, what could they do
with her but beg her to be gone too. Besides Louis himself-and his minion Decazes-were of the party, partly
because of tender feelings, partly because of my gold. As
for Frejus-who is to bother his head if one more or less
be dead or missing? It was supposed to be Frejus who
escaped; but if he do not ask them for their debts few
will care."
He was standing with one foot on the base of the cru



36o


A Little Less than Gods


cifix in the rapidly darkening wood. His horse whinnied
again from the shepherd's hut.
He said: "Wait, Josiah!" to the horse and then: "All
that sounds difficult.... Yet I assure you it was an easy
matter compared to getting hounds up wind to a fox, and
nothing at all beside the problem of dealing with mange
in your country.... I will tell you: in fifteen years or
so you shall have children by Bessie Coleman as I suspect.
Or by some other girl.     Let them come on their
ponies to the meet at the Quorn. I will guarantee blooding
to one and at least the pads to the other; favouritism
I will not show but I believe your stock will deserve it....And what Order shall be the equal of those won
without favour at the tail of good hounds? Is it the Cross
of St. Louis; is it the Legion of Honour of the exEmperor?..
"Squire," the young man said, "you would not say that
if you had seen what I saw before Grenoble-for to take
honours at the hands of such a man must in reason transcend the red honours of the hunting field.... I saw
him, with these two eyes, advance towards the hostile
troops of the King, having behind him only a few guards
with their arms reversed.... And says Napoleon: 'If
any man will take the life of his Emperor.
Mr. Smith yawned a little and excused himself on the
score of having been up at four. It was nearly dark in the
wood and the horse again whinnied uneasily.
"Why, come Josiah," Mr. Smith said, but before the
horse was there he tapped with his crop the feet of the
figure on the crucifix. "If," he said, "you insist on matching valours with me, put this one first. I will ride through




A  Little Less than Gods           36i
a bullfinch of thorns before any man or devil created;
you will cry up your Napoleon marching unarmed and
with breast bared up to hostile troops. But these are the
actions of those who are a little less than gods. I would not
hang upon a cross in a dark wood, having suffered all that
went before; nor yet would Napoleon! Nor yet would he
who is-who was!-styled the Bravest of the Brave." He
shivered, standing with his left foot in the stirrup of his
horse.
"It is curious to consider," he said, "that most of these
troubles arose because I would have had you tell me
stories of the expedition of Napoleon, yet the first that
you have told me you told me just now and it is like to be
the last."
He swung himself, a black mass, into his saddle.
"I cannot let Josiah stand longer," he said; "the merciful man is merciful also to his beast.... If you make
for the lights of the carriage you will come to it! "
The lights of the carriage had indeed just been lit;
those of the village and the church on the crest of the
slope shone red behind lattices.
"I had thought," Mr. Smith said, "to have gone with
you as far as le Havre. But I find I have not the time;
the Quorn calls me too loudly. I shall give the driver his
directions as I pass. And I wish you well!"
He touched his horse with the spur and it went away
downhill.
New York, JANUARY 9-Paris, FEBRUARY 4-New York,
MAY 21-JULY 11, 1928.








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