venture into a battle for them? No: if that were all, I should
not have the courage to ask to see you at your hotel, even. My
courage is mere slavishness: it is of no use to me for my own
purposes. It is only through love, through pity, through the
instinct to save and protect someone else, that I can do the
things that terrify me.

NAPOLEON (contemptuously). Pshaw! (He turns slightingly away from
her.)

LADY. Aha! now you see that I'm not really brave. (Relapsing into
petulant listlessness.) But what right have you to despise me if
you only win your battles for others? for your country! through
patriotism! That is what I call womanish: it is so like a
Frenchman!

NAPOLEON (furiously). I am no Frenchman.

LADY (innocently). I thought you said you won the battle of Lodi
for your country, General Bu-- shall I pronounce it in Italian or
French?

NAPOLEON. You are presuming on my patience, madam. I was born a
French subject, but not in France.

LADY (folding her arms on the end of the couch, and leaning on
them with a marked access of interest in him). You were not born
a subject at all, I think.

NAPOLEON (greatly pleased, starting on a fresh march). Eh? Eh?