"
Gahagan.--"He was found lying upon the bodies of nine-and-twenty
Cossacks at Borodino. They were all dead, and bore the Gahagan mark."
Napoleon (to Montholon).--"C'est vrai, Montholon: je vous donne ma
parole d'honneur la plus sacree, que c'est vrai. Ils ne sont pas
d'autres, ces terribles Ga'gans. You must know that Monsieur gained
the battle of Delhi as certainly as I did that of Austerlitz. In this
way:--Ce belitre de Lor Lake, after calling up his cavalry, and placing
them in front of Holkar's batteries, qui balayaient la plaine, was
for charging the enemy's batteries with his horse, who would have been
ecrases, mitrailles, foudroyes to a man but for the cunning of ce grand
rogue que vous voyez."
Montholon.--"Coquin de Major, va!"
Napoleon.--"Montholon! tais-toi. When Lord Lake, with his great
bull-headed English obstinacy, saw the facheuse position into which
he had brought his troops, he was for dying on the spot, and would
infallibly have done so--and the loss of his army would have been the
ruin of the East India Company--and the ruin of the English East India
Company would have established my empire (bah! it was a republic then!)
in the East--but that the man before us, Lieutenant Goliah Gahagan, was
riding at the side of General Lake."
Montholon (with an accent of despair and fury).
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