uide of the orphans) at a time when he
was considered one of the handsomest and bravest horse-grenadiers of the
Imperial Guard.

They had been fighting hard all day, without any decisive advantage. In
the evening, the company to which our hero belonged was sent as outliers
to occupy the ruins of a deserted village. Videttes being posted, half
the troopers remained in saddle, whilst the others, having picketed
their horses, were able to take a little rest. Our hero had charged
valiantly that day without receiving any wound--for he counted as a mere
memento the deep scratch on his thigh, which a kaiserlitz had inflicted
in awkwardly attempting an upward thrust with the bayonet.

"You donkey! my new breeches!" the grenadier had exclaimed, when he
saw the wide yawning rent, which he instantly avenged by running the
Austrian through, with a thrust scientifically administered. For, if he
showed a stoical indifference on the subject of injury to his skin, it
was not so with regard to the ripping up of his best parade uniform.

He undertook, therefore, the same evening, at the bivouac, to repair
this accident. Selecting his best needle and thread from the stores of
his housewife, and arming his finger with a thimble, he began to play
the tailor by the light of the watch-fire, having first drawn off his
cavalry-boots, and also (if it must be confessed) the injured garment
itself, which he turned the wrong side out the better to conceal the
stitches.

This partial undress was certainly a breach of discipline: but the
captain, as he went his round, could not forbear laughing at the sight
of the veteran soldier, who, gravely seated, in a squatting position,
with his grenadier cap on, his regimental coat on his back, his boots
by his side, and his galligaskins in his lap, was sewing with all the
coolness of a tailor upon his own shop-board.

Suddenly, a musket-shot is heard, and the videttes fall back upon the
detachment, calling to arms. "To horse!" cries the captain, in a voice
of thunder.

In a moment, the troopers are in their saddles, the unfortunate clothes
mender having to lead the first rank; there is no time to turn the
unlucky garment, so he slips it on, as well as he can, wrong side out,
and leaps upon his horse, without even stopping to put on his boots.

A party of Cossacks, profiting by the cover of a neighboring wood, had
attempted to surprise the detachment: the fight was bloody, and our hero
foamed with rage