they assure the officer on duty that they, the marshals, are on their way to negotiate with Prince Auersperg. He lets them enter the tête-de-pont . They spin him a thousand gasconades, saying that the war is over, that the Emperor Francis is arranging a meeting with Bonaparte, that they desire to see Prince Auersperg, and so on. The officer sends for Auersperg; these gentlemen embrace the officers, crack jokes, sit on the cannon, and meanwhile a French battalion gets to the bridge unobserved, flings the bags of incendiary material into the water, and approaches the tête-de-pont .
At length appears the lieutenant general, our dear Prince Auersperg von Mautern himself.
‘Dearest foe! Flower of the Austrian army, hero of the Turkish wars! Hostilities are ended, we can shake one another’s hand. … The Emperor Napoleon burns with impatience to make Prince Auersperg’s acquaintance.’
In a word, those gentlemen, Gascons indeed, so bewildered him with fine words, and he is so flattered by his rapidly established intimacy with the French marshals, and so dazzled by the sight of Murat’s mantle and ostrich plumes, qu’il n’y voit que du feu, et oublie celui qu’il devait faire faire sur l’ennemi !”
In spite of the animation of his speech, Bilíbin did not forget to pause after this mot to give time for its due appreciation.
“The French battalion rushes to the bridgehead, spikes the guns, and the bridge is taken! But what is best of all,” he went on, his excitement subsiding under the delightful interest of his own story, “is that the sergeant in charge of the cannon which was to give the