"Preserve your heart tender and loving, for if Fate is just, it may
one day be for the advantage of a whole nation that you are so, and
the heart of the man be the mediator between the people and its
king! Farewell, my son; we see each other to-day for the last time,
for in this very hour you will go to your ship with Desaix. It may
be that the ships will sail this very night, and if so, well! A
quick and unlooked-for separation mitigates the pains of parting.
You will soon have overcome them, and when you reach Paris, the past
will sink behind you into the sea."
"Never, oh, never!" cried Louis, with emotion. "I shall never forget
my benefactor, my second father!"
"My son, one easily forgets in Paris, and especially when he goes
thither for the purpose of creating a new future out of the ruins of
the past! But I shall never forget you; and if my presentiment
should not deceive me, and I should soon die, you will learn after
my death that I have loved you as a son. Now go, and I say to you,
as another loved voice once said to you, and as the sick and the
dying once repeated it to you, 'God bless you! All saints and angels
protect you!'"
They remained locked in their tender embrace, and then parted--never
to meet again!
That very night, before the morning began to dawn, General Desaix
started, accompanied by his adjutant Louis, and a few servants.
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