The New York herald. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1920-1924, 1921-05-05


A room about fourteen feet square,
It's walls hung with dull brown nan
keen, Its two small windows framed
with cheap white curtains. Above
the white wood mantelpiece, with It's
small dark fireplace, are portraits of
MARIE LOUISE and the King Of Rome.
TO the right Is a picture Of JOSEPH
me The furniture consists OF a
chest of drawers, an old bookcase, a
sofa, small iron camp bedstead and
"a silver basin and jug. The silver
vessels are the only furnishings that
suggest royalty. The iron bedstead
holds all that speaks of greatness.
Outside the long, low house storm
whips an island that Is always the
toy OF the trade winds. Trees are
down and gardens ruined. Occasion
ally DR.. ANToMMABcHI steps out into
the tempest as II to find relief In a
struggle less bitter to the spectator
than that which Is going on in the
little room where his fellow Corsican
is coming to the end
The morning breaks with tropical
speed, but with Ii comes no calm. At
@ o'clock the man ON the cot springs
up for the last time and speaks, also
for the last time "Tete d'armee !"
1t is the cry of one In great dream.
General MoNTHoLoN gently forces
him back upon the cot. After that,
except for the storm, the silence is
almost complete; once there Is lit
tie commotion when the young son
of BERTRAND, coming in for last
look, faints and falls.
All day the storm outside, all day
the battle Of the soul to be free. The
familiar consciousness disappears,
leaving the brain to the subliminal
and the parade of memory. The grand
moments Of the past flash upon the
screen of remembrance Marengo
Jena, Austerlitz; the magnificent year
of 1872, when all the sovereigns in
Europe except three were his ser.
wants; the day of the Consulship
the day of his second marriage; the
birth of his son; the wonderful march,
after Elba, from Cannes to Paris.
Regretful pictures too; the failure
to conquer the East; the grandeur
with which he would have closed his
life If he had died at the summit of
his glory at Dresden; and, of course,
the misery of Waterloo.
If there can be visions OF the fu-
ture: A Prussia, made strong by fear
of him, nearlysas drunk with strength
as he was; Europe more shaken
with war than even he shook 1t
kings displaced by their people as
rudely as he had pulled them down
to put his brothers on thrones; q
Europe nearly all republican and not
at all Cossack: his France united In
battle with his old enemy, England
the Louisiana territory, which he had
said would be the means of humbline
England, pouring Its men and food
across the Atlantic to help England
as we'll as France; his aphorism
war is matter Of tact" proving
the key of the allied triumph.
The day ends. The storm growing
fiercer, broken branches clatter against
the windows and the sides OF the
house. The only sound now In the
little room Is the labored breath of
the sufferer and the low voice Of the
Able VIGNALI in the prayers for the
dying. The prayers end The doctor
makes a test. Enter the friends in
exile, MoNTHoLoN, LAS CAsAs and
BERTRAND, and their families. Now
they can weep, for their Emperor will
never hear anything again. Two Eng
llsh officers In uniform come in like
machines. approach the iron cot and
lay their fingers on the hands that
for twenty years played with the
world. There Is no warmth, no pulse.
Still like machines they leave the
room to report to the Governor that
be Will have no moro complaints from
General BoNAPARTE. Europe may
breathe easily again.
MARcHAND, faithful valet since the
days OF his masters greatest fortune,
lays an old cloak over the thin form
on the iron cot. MoNTHoLoN, who
was in the italian campaign as a
boy, remembers that he first saw the
cloak at Marengo, more than twenty
years before.
out In the storm two men start
across the fields with spades.
Castles in Spain.