He next day Murat and Brune lunched with us. Luncheon was served in a room on the first floor; from the window of this room Montmartre could be seen, and I remember that I was watching a huge kite floating gracefully in the air above some windmills, when my father called me to him, put Brune's sword between my legs, Murat's hat on my head, and made me gallop round the table. "Do not ever forget, my child," he said to me, "how to-day you have ridden round that table on Brune's sword, and had Murat's hat on your head, also that you were kissed yesterday by Madame de Montesson, widow of the duc d'Orléans, the regent's grandson."
See, my father, how well I have remembered all the incidents you bade me recollect. And since I came to years of discretion my memories of you have lived in me like a sacred lamp, illuminating everything and every person you ever laid a finger on, although time has destroyed those things, and death has taken away those persons.
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