neral; it was the
table-talk of your mess. The burthen of every song, the title of every
military march performed by the regimental band, recalled it; even the
riding-master, 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-sergeant, 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 horseman, 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 cava