y of eighty-three men every effort of the hostile
army. Pontmercy was one of the three who emerged alive from that
cemetery. He was at Friedland. Then he saw Moscow. Then La Beresina,
then Lutzen, Bautzen, Dresden, Wachau, Leipzig, and the defiles of
Gelenhausen; then Montmirail, Chateau-Thierry, Craon, the banks of the
Marne, the banks of the Aisne, and the redoubtable position of Laon. At
Arnay-Le-Duc, being then a captain, he put ten Cossacks to the sword,
and saved, not his general, but his corporal. He was well slashed up on
this occasion, and twenty-seven splinters were extracted from his left
arm alone. Eight days before the capitulation of Paris he had just
exchanged with a comrade and entered the cavalry. He had what was called
under the old regime, the double hand, that is to say, an equal aptitude
for handling the sabre or the musket as a soldier, or a squadron or
a battalion as an officer. It is from this aptitude, perfected by a
military education, which certain special branches of the service arise,
the dragoons, for example, who are both cavalry-men and infantry at one
and the same time. He accompanied Napoleon to the Island of Elba. At
Waterloo, he was chief of a squadron of cuirassiers, in Dubois' brigade.
It was he who captured the standard of the Lunenburg battalion. He came
and cast the flag at the Emperor's feet. He was covered with blood.
While tearing down the banner he had received a sword-cut across his
face. The Emperor, greatly pleased, shouted to him: "You are a colonel,
you are a baron, you are an officer of the Legion of Honor!" Pontmercy
replied: "Sire, I thank you for my widow." An hour later, he fell in the
ravine of Ohain. Now, who was this Georges Pontmercy? He was this same
"brigand of the Loire."

We have already seen something of his history. After Waterloo,
Pontmercy, who had been pulled out of the hollow road of Ohain, as it
will be remembered, had succeeded in joining the army, and had dragged
himself from ambulance to ambulance as far as the cantonments of the
Loire.

The Restoration had placed him on half-pay, then had sent him into
residence, that is to say, under surveillance, at Vernon. King Louis
XVIII., regarding all that which had taken place during the Hundred
Days as not having occurred at all, did not recognize his quality as an
officer of the Legion of Honor, nor his grade of colonel, nor his title
of baron. He, on his side, neglected no occasion of signing himself