breakfast. No, they may not wait till morning. Fortune has given the Prussians into my hands. Write to my brother in Paris; tell him that he may expect news from us of the most important character in forty-eight hours. Let the Parisians continue their misérérés and their forty-hour-long prayers for the present. We'll soon give them something else to think of." 

 "But, Sire——" feebly interposed Berthier. 

 "Do as I tell you," said the Emperor, good-humoredly, "and leave the rest to me."  He was in a mood apparently that nothing could dash that morning.  "And you will be as much surprised as the Prussians, and I believe that nobody can be more amazed than they will be." 

 

 

 CHAPTER III 

 THE ARMY MARCHES AWAY 

 Gallantly on his errand rode young Marteau. Napoleon's order to Berthier, by him transmitted down the line, had secured four of the best horses in the army for his messengers. For young Marteau went not alone. With him rode a tall grenadier of the Imperial Guard, whose original name had been lost, or forgot, in a sobriquet which fitted him perfectly, and which he had richly earned in a long career as a soldier. They called him "Bullet Stopper," "Balle-Arrêtante," the curious compound ran in French, and the soldiers clipped it and condensed it into "Bal-Arrêt!"  He used to boast that he had been wounded in every country in Europe and in Asia and Africa as well. He had been hit more times than any soldier high or low in the army. He had distinguished himself by valor, and, but for his humble extraction and meager education, might have risen to a high command. As it was, he was personally known to the Emperor, and was accounted as one of the favorite soldiers of the army. 

 He, too, had been a dweller on the Aumenier estates. It was his tales of adventure which had kindled the martial spirit in young Marteau, whom he had known from his birth. A warm friendship subsisted between the young officer and the old soldier, which no difference in rank or station could ever impair. When the Emperor had given him leave to take 

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