e envy of the other chamberlains, or pinked
by some lover of the "_dames d'honneur_," was beginning to be uneasy about
you; and, as I had the peculiar good fortune of the Chevalier Marston's
acquaintance, I was sent to pick him up if he had fallen in honourable
combat in the plains of Champagne, or if any fragment of him were
recoverable from the hands of the peasantry, to preserve it for the family
mausoleum."

I anxiously enquired the news of the army, and the progress of the great
operation which was then going on.

"We have beaten every thing before us for these three hours," was the
answer. "The resistance in the plain was slight, for the French evidently
intended to make their stand only in the forest. But the duke has pushed
them strongly on the right flank; and, as you may perceive, the attack
goes on in force." He pointed to the entrance of one of the defiles, where
several columns were in movement, and where the smoke of the firing lay
heavily above the trees. He then laid his watch on the table beside our
champagne flask. "The time is come to execute another portion of my orders.
What think you of following me, and seeing a little of the field."

"Nothing could delight me more. I am perfectly at your service."

"Then mount, and in five minutes I shall allow you one of the first
officers in Europe, the Count Clairfait, he is a Walloon, 'tis true, and
has the ill luck to be an Austrian brigadier besides, and, to finish his
misfortune, has served only against the Turks. But for all that, if any
man in the army now in the field is fit to succeed to the command, that
man is the Count Clairfait. I only wish that he were a Prussian."

"Has he had any thing to do in this campaign?"

"Every thing that has been done. He has commanded the whole advance guard
of the army; and let me whisper this in your ear--if his advice had been
taken a week ago, we should by this time have been smoking our cigars in
the Palais Royal."

"I am impatient to be introduced to the Comte; let us mount and ride on."
He looked at his watch again.

"Not for ten minutes to come. If I made my appearance before him five
minutes in advance of the time appointed by my orders, Clairfait would
order me into arrest if I were his grandmother. He is the strictest
disciplinarian between this and the North Pole."

"A faultless monster himself, I presume."

"Nearly so; he has but one fault--he is too fond of the sabre and bayonet.
'Charge,' is hi