376 The Wife of the Polish Patriot. [APRIL, 



done in a few days than could be accomplished in a month, and this 

 poor soul thinks, forsooth, that we shall turn Smolensk upside down to 

 look after one dead Pole. Lrkely, i'faith ! as if we died by units as if 

 a thousand or two a day was not a good come-off. Splash my uniform, 

 though, if I am not inclined to serve the woman, so it be in a moderate 

 and short way. What, ho ! Danvers," he said, calling to an orderly 

 dragoon who waited on him, " bustle me up an aide-de-camp or two, 

 and bid them go instantly inquire among the recently arrived baggage- 

 drivers, if they know ought of the body of one Cornet Captain Dorn- 

 browinski Ladobrowski, of the Fifth Polish Lancers ; and tell the 

 cattle-driving, dronish knaves they shall answer with their frosty breath 

 for the captain's safety." The other mareschal added some plainer and 

 more precise directions. The dragoon's answer which to the first 

 speaker was, " Your Majesty shall be obeyed" to the second, " Your 

 Excellency shall be served," agitated the hopes and feelings of Aimee 

 in a new and extraordinary degree. Forgetful for a moment of the 

 descriptions of Napoleon's person, she exclaimed, addressing the taller 

 mareschal, with irrepressible emotion, " Am I then in the presence of 

 the Emperor of the French ?" <( Good, on my word !" answered the 

 officer, laughing heartily. " Know, my good woman," he added, gaily, 

 and rather vauntingly, "that when I stretch out this good arm of mine 

 (straight from my shoulder thus), the emperor of all the French, and 

 the sovereign of half Europe, might pass under it without deranging 

 his coiffure. No (raising his eyebrows with rather an ironical shrug), 

 no the diadem of Naples encircles my brow a somewhat warmer 

 throne mine than that of the Czars ; and if you visited my capital., it is 

 probable I might be able to shew you a palace indifferently better fitted 

 up than the one I have the infinite honour to occupy at present, and, 

 without gross exaggeration, perhaps I might add, situated in a some- 

 what more genial clime." He cast, as he spoke, a half gay, half bitter 

 glance towards the driving snow-storm without, as if rendered more 

 chilly by the remembrance of the bright sun that was, at that very 

 moment, shining over his fair dominions of the south. Aimee made a 

 suitable reverence to the brave, handsome, and unkingly sovereign of 

 Naples, and then cast an involuntary glance of fear and doubt towards 

 his companion. The latter smiled, somewhat amused, and, with a good- 

 natured shake of the head, said " No ; I am no emperor/' " But, 

 perhaps," observed Murat, in the same reckless tone,' " he might claim 

 some such title for a step-father, and what" (somewhat sneeringly) " if, 

 to boot, he had an archduchess, in some sort, for his step-mother ! Per- 

 haps, too, he may have presided over a region a shade or two more 

 inviting than the glowing landscape which we behold from the walls of 

 fair Smolensk. Eh, vice-regal kinsman?" "Your majesty would, 

 perhaps, do well to be more guarded in your expressions," replied 

 Eugene Beauharnois, to whom the fiery Murat's growing disaffection 

 to the Russian enterprize was no secret. " And now, Madam/' he 

 added, courteously, " is there aught else in which we can serve you ? 

 By the trueness of your accent, I believe we may claim you as a com- 

 patriot ?" " I am, indeed, the daughter of the Count de Limoisin, 

 -who" Aimee was meekly beginning, but the uncourtly Joachim in- 

 terrupted " O, in sooth, a royalist emigree ! I warrant me well, now, 

 thou art no lover of thy husband's military master. Nay, tremble not 

 we are not perhaps at this moment in such a topping humour of 



