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It is no motive of vanity that sets me here with a pen in my hand trying to arrange in decent order, like so many irregular troops, the memories of all that I have seen and passed through in my master's service; nor have I any wish to obtain for myself the reflected glory that comes from being known to have mixed with great persons. Now that the stiffness is gathering in my joints, and my white hairs are falling to the ground, that will soon be covering up my wasted old body altogether, I thank God that I can do my duty without thinking of the world's clappings. I write, then, with no other purpose than to vindicate one who is dead and who in his life was very dear to me against that brood of lies and scandals which has lately been hanging, like a thickening cloud of dung-flies, about his memory. Some will tell you that the late Emperor was a womanish, mouse-spirited fellow; others that he was a right-out knave and blackguard; and yet more will have it that he was an arrant moon-mad fool. Oh, those whispering, cowardly falsehoods! How I would once have spilt a man's blood for less than hinting at them! I am too old now, however, and, please God, of a temper too chastened to deal in bragging sword-work. But my blood is not yet past blazing up at an insult to one whom I know to have been the soul of courage, faithfulness, and honour. And where, I might ask, will you find a man that is like to know what Louis Napoleon was, and what he was not, better than his trusted companion in shade and shine, plain Dick Blennerhasset?
But I will tell you first what was the beginning of my acquaintance with Napoleon, and what it was that made me swear an oath to him, promising him my hand and heart, whether in ignominy or Imperial triumph, so long as a drop of blood moved in my body. It was in the winter of 1830, when the Carbonari had finally resolved on the freedom and unity of Italy. The Austrians were to be driven from the north, and the Pope was to be compelled to renounce his authority over the Papal dominions. I was young at the time, and filled with ideals; so you will not wonder at it that I was chin-deep in the conspiracy. Rich and poor, lay and cleric, citizen and man of war, everybody who had a heart to fire gave it in those days to the cause of a national Italy.
Some of the nobler and wealthier among us had gathered one night in the palace of the Marquis di Bellifonti, to enjoy an hour or two's dancing in the midst of all our feverish plottings and anxieties. I had been dancing for some two hours so hard and wholeheartedly that I was compelled at length to ask my partner in a new waltz to sit
