Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/270

228 ORIGIN OF THE WAH OF 1853 C H A P. captive General, and tried to gain him over, but XIV . __ L_ was repulsed. Afterwards the Prince, surrounded with men personating an Imperial Staff, was con- ducted to the barrack of the 46th Regiment ; and the men, taken entirely by surprise, were told that the person now introduced to them was their Emperor. What they saw was a young man with the bearing and countenance of a weaver — a weaver oppressed by long hours of monotonous indoor work, which makes the body stoop and keeps the eyes downcast ; but all the while — and yet it was broad daylight — this young man, from hat to boot, was standing dressed up in the his- toric costume of the man of Austerlitz and Marengo. It seems that this painful exhibition began to undo the success which Vaudrey had achieved ; but strange things had happened in Paris before ; and the soldiery could not with certainty know that the young man might not be what they were told he was — Napoleon II., the new-made Emperor of the French. Their per- plexity gave the Prince an opportunity of trying whether the sentiment for the Bonapartes were really existing or not, and if it were, whether he was the man to kindle it. But by-and-by Talandier, the Colonel of the regiment, having been at length apprised of what was going on, came into the yard. He instantly ordered the gates to be closed, and then — fierce, angry, and scornful — went straight up to the spot where the proposed Emperor and his ' Imperial Staff were standing. Of course this apparition