ing together, would seem to indicate that some messenger
had arrived with despatches. At length all these sounds became hushed and
still. No longer were the voices heard; and except the measured tread of
the heavy cuirassier, as he paced on the flags beneath, nothing was to be
heard. My state of suspense, doubly greater now than when the noise and
tumult suggested food for conjecture, continued till towards noon, when
a soldier in undress brought me some breakfast, and told me to prepare
speedily for the road.

Scarcely had he left the room, when the rumbling noise of wagons was heard
below, and a train of artillery carts moved into the little courtyard
loaded with wounded men. It was a sad and frightful sight to see these poor
fellows, as, crammed side by side in the straw of the _charrette_, they
lay, their ghastly wounds opening with every motion of the wagon, while
their wan, pale faces were convulsed with agony and suffering. Of every
rank, from the sous-lieutenant to the humble soldier, from every arm of the
service, from the heavy cuirassier of the guard to the light and intrepid
tirailleur, they were there. I well remember one, an artillery-man of
the guard, who, as they lifted him forth from the cart, presented the
horrifying spectacle of one both of whose legs had been carried away by a
cannon-shot. Pale, cold, and corpse-like, ha lay in their arms; his head
lay heavily to one side, his arms fell passively as in death. It was at
this moment a troop of lancers, the advanced guard of D'Erlon's Division,
came trotting up the road; the cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" burst from them
as they approached; its echo rang within the walls of the farm-house, when
suddenly the dying man, as though some magic touch had called him back to
life and vigor, sprang up erect between his bearers, his filmy eye flashing
fire, a burning spot of red coloring his bloodless cheek. He cast one wild
and hurried look around him, like one called back from death to look
upon the living; and as he raised his blood-stained hand above his head,
shouted, in a heart-piercing cry, "Vive l'Empereur!" The effort was his
last. It was the expiring tribute of allegiance to the chief he adored. The
blood spouted in cataracts from his half-closed wounds, a convulsive spasm
worked through his frame, his eyes rolled fearfully, as his outstretched
hands seemed striving to clutch some object before them, and he was dead.
Fresh arrivals of wounded continued to pour