Page:California Digital Library (IA recollectionsofe00abeliala).pdf/237

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Ch. XVII.]
the Emperor Napoleon.
205

the pile of claret near me, and kept my enemies at bay. As the first faint light of morning dawned through my prison bars, I was startled to perceive what my victory would cost my father, for I was surrounded by heaps of broken bottles, and rivulets of wine, and either from exhaustion, or the exhalation from the saturated ground of the cellar, I was found by the slave who brought me my breakfast in the morning, in a state of stupor from which I was with difficulty aroused. My father was too happy at my escape to blame me for the means I resorted to to preserve myself from my hungry foes; and I was forgiven my ill-judged pleasantry to the emperor. The latter expressed regret at my severe punishment for so trifling an offence, but was much amused by my relation of the battle with the rats; he said, he had been startled by observing a huge one jumping out of his hat, as he was in the act of putting it on.

On a subsequent occasion, I was confined

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.