I, as springing forward, I called outThis way, boys, the wall of the or chard has scarcely a man to defend it;' and I rattled out the pas-de-charge,' with all my force. One crashing fire of guns and small arms answered me from the farm-house; and then away went the Germans as hard as they could!-such running never was seen! One of the guns they carried off with them, the tackle of the other broke, and the drivers, jumping off their saddles, took to their legs at once. Our

lads were over the walls, through the windows, between the stockades, everywhere in fact, in a minute, and once inside, they carried all before them. The village was taken at the point of the bayonet, and in less than an hour the whole force of the brigade was advancing in full march on the enemy's flank. There was little resistance made after that, and Kaunitz only saved his artillery by leaving his rere guard to be cut to pieces."

The cannonier nodded, as if in full assent, and Pièrre looked around him with the air of a man who has vindicated his claim to greatness.

"Of course," said he, "the despatch said little about Pièrre Canot, but a great deal about Moreau, and Kleber,

and the rest of them."

While some were well satisfied that Pierre had well-established his merits, as the conqueror of " Grandrengs," others quizzed him about the heroism of lying hid in a well, and owing all his glory to a skin of parchment.

"An' thou went with the army of Italy, Pièrre," said the hussar, "thou'd have seen men march boldly to victory, and not skulk under ground like a mole."

"I am tired of your song about this army of Italy," broke in the cannonier; "we who have served in La Vendee and the North know what fighting means, as well, mayhap, as men whose boldest feats are scaling rocks and clambering up precipices. Your Bonaparte is more like one of these Guerilla chiefs they have in the Basque,' than the general of a French army."

6

"The man who insults the army of Italy, or its chief, insults me!" said the corporal, springing up, and casting a sort of haughty defiance around

him.

"And then?"-asked the other.

"And then--if he be a French soldier, he knows what should follow."

"Parbleu!" said the cannonier, coolly, “there would be little glory in cutting you down, and even less in being wounded by you; but if you will have it so, it's not an old soldier of the artillery will baulk your humour."

As he spoke, he slowly arose from the ground, and tightening his waist-belt, seemed prepared to follow the other. The rest sprung to their feet at the same time, but not, as I anticipated, to offer a friendly mediation between the angry parties, but in full approval of their readiness to decide by the sword a matter too trivial to be called a quarrel.

In the midst of the whispering conferences as to place and weapons-for the short, straight sword of the artillery was very unlike the curved sabre of the hussar-the quick tramp of horses was heard, and suddenly the head of a squadron was seen, as, with glancing helmets and glittering equipments, they turned off the high-road and entered the wood.

"Here they come!-here come the troops!" was now heard on every side; and all question of the duel was forgotten in the greater interest inspired by the arrival of the others. The sight was strikingly picturesque; for, as they rode up, the order to dismount was given, and in an instant the whole squadron was at work picqueting and unsaddling their horses; forage was shaken out before the weary and hungry beasts; kits were unpacked, cooking utensils produced, and every one busy in preparing for the bivouac. An infantry column followed close upon the others, which was again succeeded by two batteries of field-artillery, and some squadrons of heavy dragoons; and now the whole wood, far and near, was crammed with soldiers, wagons, caissons, and camp equipage. To me the interest of the scene was neverending life, bustle, and gaiety on every side. The reckless pleasantry of the camp, too, seemed elevated by the warlike accompaniments of the picture the caparisoned horses the brass guns blackened on many a battlefield the weather-seamed faces of the hardy soldiers themselves-all conspiring to excite a high enthusiasm for the career.

Most of the equipments were new and strange to my eyes. I had never before seen the grenadiers of the Republican Guard, with their enormous

shakos, and their long-flapped vests, descending to the middle of the thigh;

neither had I seen the " Hussars de la mort," in their richly-braided uniform of black, and their long hair curled in ringlets at either side of the face. The cuirassiers, too, with their low cocked hats, and straight black feathers, as well as the "Portes Drapeaux," whose brilliant uniforms, all slashed with gold, seemed scarcely in keeping with yellow-topped boots: all were now seen by me for the first time. But of all the figures, which amused me most by its singularity, was that of a woman, who, in a short frock-coat and a low-crowned hat, carried a little barrel at her side, and led an ass loaded with two similar, but rather larger casks. Her air and gait were perfectly soldier-like; and as she passed the different posts and sentries, she saluted them in true military fashion. I was not long to remain in ignorance of her vocation nor her name; for scarcely did she pass a group without stopping to dispense a wonderful cordial that she carried; and then I heard the familiar title of "La Mére Madou," uttered in every form of panegyric.

She was a short, stoutly-built figure, somewhat past the middle of life, but without any impairment of activity in her movements. A pleasing countenance, with good teeth and black eyes, a merry voice, and a ready tongue, were qualities more than sufficient to make her a favourite with the soldiers, whom I found she had followed to more than one battle field.

"Peste!" cried an old grenadier, as he spat out the liquor on the ground. "This is one of those sweet things they make in Holland; it smacks of treacle and bad lemons.'

"Ah, Grognard!" said she, laughing, "thou art more used to corn-brandy, with a clove of garlic in't, than to good curaçoa."

"What, curaçoa! Mére Madou, hast got curoçoa there?" cried a greywhiskered captain, as he turned on his saddle at the word.

66

"Didn't I tell you so?" said she, refilling the glass; but, holloa, there goes Gregoire at full speed. Ah, scoundrels that ye are, I see what ye've done." And so was it; some of the wild young voltigeur fellows had fastened a lighted furze-bush to the beast's tail, and had set him at a gallop through the very middle of the encampment, upsetting tents, scattering cookingpans, and tumbling the groups, as they sat, in every direction.

The confusion was tremendous, for the picqueted horses jumped about, and some breaking loose, galloped here and there, while others set off with half-unpacked wagons, scattering their loading as they went.

It was only when the blazing furze had dropped off that the cause of the whole mischance would suffer himself to be captured, and led quietly back to his mistress. Half-crying with joy, and still wild with anger, she kissed the beast, and abused her tormentors by turns.

"Cannoniers that ye are," she cried, "ma foi! you'll have little taste for fire when the day comes that ye should face it! Pauvre Gregoire, they've left thee a tail like a tirailleur's feather! Plagues light on the thieves that did it! Come here, boy," said she, addressing me, hold the bridle; what's thy corps, lad?"

"I have none now; I only followed the soldiers from Paris."

"Away with thee, street runner; away with thee, then," said she, contemptuously; "there are no pockets to pick here; and if there were, thou'd lose thy ears for the doing it. Be off, then; back with thee to Paris and all its villanies. There are twenty thousand of thy trade there, but there's work for ye all!"

"Nay, Mére, don't be harsh with the boy," said a soldier; "you can see by his coat that his heart is with us."

"And he stole that, I'll be sworn," said she, pulling me round by the arm, full in front of her. "Answer me, Gamin,' where did'st find that old tawdry jacket?"

6

"I got it in a place where, if they had hold of thee and thy bad tongue, it would fare worse with thee than thou thinkest," said I, maddened by the imputed theft and insolence together.

And where may that be, young slip of the galleys?" cried she, angrily. In the Prison du Temple.'

"Is that their livery, then?" said she, laughing, and pointing at me with ridicule, or is it a family dress made after thy father's?"

"My father wore a soldier's coat, and bravely, too," said I, with difficulty restraining the tears that rose to my eyes.

"In what regiment, boy ?" asked the soldier who spoke before.

"In one that exists no longer," said I, sadly, and not wishing to allude to a service that would find but slight favour in republican ears.

"That must be the 24th of the Line; they were cut to pieces at Tongres." "No-no, he's thinking of the 9th, that got so roughly handled at Fontenoy," said another.

"Of neither," said I ; "I am speaking of those who have left nothing but a name behind them, the Garde du Corps' of the king."

"Voila!" cried Madou, clapping her hands in astonishment at my impertinence; "there's an aristocrat for you! Look at him, mes braves! it's not every day we have the grand seigneurs condescending to come amongst us! You can learn something of courtly manners from the polished descendant of our nobility. Say, boy, art a count, or a baron, or perhaps a duke.'

“Make way there out of the road, Mére Madou," cried a dragoon, curveting his horse in such a fashion as almost to upset ass and "cantiniére" together, "the staff is coming."

The mere mention of the word sent numbers off in full speed to their quarters; and now, all was haste and bustle to prepare for the coming inspection. The Mere's endeavours to drag her beast along were not very successful; for, with the peculiar instinct of his species, the more necessity there was of speed, the lazier he became; and as every one had his own concerns to look after, she was left to her own unaided efforts to drive him forward.

"Thou'lt have a day in prison if thou'rt found here, Mère Madou," said a dragoon, as he struck the ass with the flat of his sabre.

"I know it well," cried she, passionately; "but I have none to help me. Come here, lad; be good-natured, and forget what passed. Take his bridle while I whip him on.”

I was at first disposed to refuse, but her pitiful face and sad plight made me think better of it; and I seized the

bridle at once; but just as I had done so, the escort galloped forward, and the dragoons coming on the flank of the miserable beast, over he went, barrels and all, crushing me beneath him as he fell.

"Is the boy hurt?" were the last words I heard, for I fainted; but a few minutes after I found myself seated on the grass, while a soldier was staunching the blood that ran freely from a cut in my forehead,

"It is a trifle, General-a mere scratch," said a young officer to an old man on horseback beside him, "and the leg is not broken."

"Glad of it," said the old officer; "casualties are insufferable, except before an enemy. Send the lad to his regiment."

"He's only a camp-follower, General. He does not belong to us."

"There, my lad, take this, then, and make thy way back to Paris," said the old general, as he threw me a small piece of money.

I looked up, and there, straight before me, saw the same officer who had given me the assignat the night before.

"General La Coste!" cried I, in delight, for I thought him already a friend.

"How is this-have I an acquaintance here?" said he, smiling; "on my life! it's the young rogue I met this morning. Eh! art not thou the artillery-driver I spoke to at the barrack?" "Yes, General, the same.'

"Diantre! It seems fated, then, that we are not to part company so easily; for hadst thou remained in Paris, lad,

we

had most probably never met again."

"Ainsi je suis bien tombé," General, said I, punning upon my accident.

He laughed heartily, less I suppose at the jest, which was a poor one, than at the cool impudence with which I uttered it; and then turning to one of the staff, said

"I spoke to Berthollet about this boy already. -see that they take him in the 9th. I say, my lad, what's thy name?" "Tiernay, sir."

66

Ay, to be sure, Tiernay. Well, Tiernay, thou shalt be a hussar, my man. See that I get no disgrace by the appointment."

I kissed his hand fervently, and the staff rode forward, leaving me the happiest heart that beat in all that crowd

ed host.

Ir the guide, who is to lead us on a long and devious track, stops at every by-way, following out each path that seems to invite a ramble or suggest a halt, we naturally might feel distrustful of his safe conduct, and uneasy at the prospect of the road before us. In the same way may the reader be disposed to fear that he who descends to slight and trivial circumstances, will scarcely have time for events which ought to occupy a wider space in his reminiscences; and for this reason I am bound to apologise for the seeming transgression of my last chapter. Most true it is, that were I to relate the entire of my life with a similar diffuseness, my memoir would extend to a length far beyond what I intend it to occupy. Such, however, is very remote from my thoughts. I have dwelt with, perhaps, something of prolixity upon the soldier-life and characteristics of a past day, because I shall yet have to speak of changes, without which the contrast would be inappreciable; but I have also laid stress upon an incident trivial in itself, because it formed an event in my own fortunes. It was thus, in fact, that I became a soldier.

Now, the man who carries a musket in the ranks, may very reasonably be deemed but a small ingredient of the mass that forms an army; and in our day his thoughts, hopes, fears, and ambitions are probably as unknown and uncared for, as the precise spot of earth that yielded the ore from which his own weapon was smelted. This is not only reasonable, but it is right. In the time of which I am now speaking it was far otherwise. The Republic, in extinguishing a class had elevated the individual; and now each, in whatever station he occupied, felt himself qualified to entertain opinions and express sentiments, which, because they were his own, he presumed them to be national. The idlers of the streets discussed the deepest questions of politics; the soldiers talked of war with all the presumption of consummate generalship. The great operations of a campaign, and the various qualities of different commanders, were the daily subjects of dispute in the camp. Upon

one topic only were all agreed; and there, indeed, our unanimity repaid all previous discordance. We deemed France the only civilised nation of the globe, and reckoned that people thrice happy who, by any contingency of for. tune, engaged our sympathy, or procured the distinction of our presence in arms. We were the heaven-born disseminators of freedom throughout Europe; the sworn enemies of kingly domination; and the missionaries of a political creed, which was not alone to ennoble mankind, but to render its condition eminently happy and prosperous.

There could not be an easier lesson to learn than this, and particularly when dinned into your ears all day, and from every rank and grade around you. It was the programme of every message from the Directory; it was the opening of every general order from the General; it was the tabletalk at your mess. The burthen of every song, the title of every military march performed by the regimen. tal band, recalled it, even the ridingmaster, as he followed the recruit around the weary circle, whip in hand, mingled the orders he uttered with apposite axioms upon Republican grandeur. How I think I hear it still, as the grim old quartermaster-serjeant, with his Alsatian accent and deep-toned voice, would call out

"Elbows back!-wrist lower and free from the side-free, I say, as every citizen of a great Republic!-head erect, as a Frenchman has a right to carry it-chest full out, like one who can breathe the air of Heaven, and ask no leave from king or despot!-down with your heel, sir; think that you crush a tyrant beneath it!"

Such and such like were the running commentaries on equitation, till often I forgot whether the lesson had more concern with a seat on horseback or the great cause of monarchy throughout Europe. I suppose, to use a popular phrase of our own day, "the system worked well;" certainly the spirit of the army was unquestionable. From the grim old veteran, with snow-white moustache, to the beardless boy, there was but one

hope and wish the glory of France. How they understood that glory, or in what it essentially consisted, is another and very different question.

Enrolled as a soldier in the ninth regiment of Hussars, I accompanied that corps to Nancy, where, at that time, a large cavalry school was formed, and where the recruits from the different regiments were trained and managed before being sent forward to their destination.

A taste for equitation, and a certain aptitude for catching up the peculiar character of the different horses, at once distinguished me in the riding school, and I was at last adopted by the riding-master of the regiment as a kind of aide to him in his walk. When I thus became a bold and skilful horse

man, my proficiency interfered with my promotion, for instead of accompanying my regiment I was detained at Nancy, and attached to the permanent staff of the cavalry school there.

At first I asked for nothing better. It was a life of continued pleasure and excitement, and while I daily acquired knowledge of a subject which interested me deeply, I grew tall and strong of limb, and with that readiness in danger, and that cool collectedness in moments of difficulty, that are so admirably taught by the accidents and mischances of a cavalry riding-school.

The most vicious and unmanageable beasts from the Limousin were often sent to us; and when any one of these was deemed peculiarly untractable, "Give him to Tiernay," was the last appeal, before abandoning him as hopeless. I'm certain I owe much of the formation of my character to my life at this period, and that my love of adventure, my taste for excitement, my obstinate resolution to conquer a difficulty, my inflexible perseverance when thwarted, and my eager anxiety for praise, were all picked up amid the sawdust and tan of the riding-school. How long I might have continued satisfied with such triumphs, and content to be the wonder of the freshlyjoined conscripts, I know not, when accident, or something very like it, decided the question.

It was a calm, delicious evening in April, in the year after I had entered the school, that I was strolling alone on the old fortified wall, which, once a strong redoubt, was the favourite walk of the good citizens of Nancy.

I was somewhat tired with the fatigues of the day, and sat down to rest under one of the acacia trees, whose delicious blossom was already scenting the air. The night was still and noiseless; not a man moved along the wall; the hum of the city was gradually subsiding, and the lights in the cottages over the plain told that the labourer was turning homeward from his toil. It was an hour to invite calm thoughts, and so I fell a dreaming over the tranquil pleasures of a peasant's life, and the unruffled peace of an existence passed amid scenes that were endeared by years of intimacy. "How happily," thought I, "time must steal on in these quiet spots, where the strife and struggle of war are unknown, and even the sounds of conflict never reach." Suddenly my musings were broken in upon by hearing the measured tramp of cavalry, as at a walk, a long column wound their way along the zig-zag approaches, which by many a redoubt and fosse, over many a draw-bridge, and beneath many a strong arch, led to the gates of Nancy. The loud, sharp call of a trumpet was soon heard, and, after a brief parley, the massive gates of the fortress were opened for the troops to enter. From

the position I occupied exactly over the gate, I could not only see the long, dark line of armed men as they passed, but also hear the colloquy which took place as they entered.

"What regiment?"

"Detachments of the 12th Dragoons and the 22nd Chasseurs-à-Cheval." Where from?" "Valence." "Where to?"

"The army of the Rhine."
"Pass on!"

And with the words the ringing sound of the iron-shod horses was heard beneath the vaulted entrance. As they issued from beneath the long deep arch, the men were formed in line along two sides of a wide "Place" inside the walls, where, with that despatch that habit teaches, the billets were speedily distributed, and the parties "told off" in squads for different parts of the city. The force seemed a considerable one, and with all the celerity they could employ, the billeting occupied a long time. I watched the groups moving off, I heard the direction given to one party, "Cavalry School-Rue de Lorraine.”

As