e lively stories of passing events; but I saw a solitary tear
creeping down the cheek of Madame Panpan, even in the midst of a quaint
sally; and, under pretence of arranging his pillow, she bent over his
head and kissed him gently on the forehead.

Pere Panpan--I had come by degrees to call him "Pere," although he was
still young; for it sounded natural and kindly--continued his narrative
in his rambling, gossiping way. He had been chosen, he said, to serve in
the Garde Royale, of whom fifteen thousand sabres were stationed in and
about the capital at this period; and in the royal forest of
Fontainebleau, in the enjoyment of a sort of indolent activity, he passed
his happiest days; now employed in the chase, now in the palace
immediately about the person of the king, in a succession of active
pleasures, or easy, varied duties. Panpan was no republican. Indeed, I
question whether any very deep political principles governed his
sentiments; which naturally allied themselves with those things that
yielded the greatest amount of pleasure.

The misfortunes of Pere Panpan dated from the revolution of eighteen
hundred and thirty. Then the glittering pageantry in the palace of
Fontainebleau vanished like a dream. The wild clatter of military
preparation; the rattling of steel and the trampling of horses; and away
swept troop after troop, with sword-belt braced and carabine in hand, to
plunge into the mad uproar of the streets of Paris, risen, stones and
all, in revolution. The Garde Royale did their duty in those three
terrible days, and if their gallant charges through the encumbered
streets, or their patient endurance amid the merciless showers of
indescribable missiles, were all in vain, it was because their foe was
animated by an enthusiasm of which they knew nothing, save in the
endurance of its effects. Panpan's individual fate, amid all this
turmoil, was lamentable enough.

A few hours amid the dust; the sweltering heat; the yellings of the
excited populace; the roaring of cannon and the pattering of musketry;
saw the troop in which he served, broken and scattered, and Panpan
himself rolling in the dust, with a thousand lights flashing in his eyes,
and a brass button lodged in his side!

"Those villains of Parisians!" he exclaimed, "not content with showering
their whole garde meuble upon our heads, fired upon us a diabolical
collection of missiles, such as no mortal ever thought of before:--bits
of broken bras