the remainder
of their lives.

One morning, I was at the Lyceum, where all were prepared for an
immediate order to march, and each one was making his last arrangements.
No person could have supposed that these young men expected to be
engaged, within a few hours, in mortal combat. They were in the highest
spirits, and looked forward to the hoped-for battle as though it were to
be the most amusing thing imaginable. While I was there, a false
report came in that Napoleon had resumed the command of the army. The
excitement instantly rose to fever-heat, and the demonstration told what
hold he still had on these his steadfast friends. From our position the
rear of the army was but a short distance, while the advanced portions
of it were engaged. Versailles had been entered by the Allies, who were
attacked and driven out by the French under Vandamme. The cannonade was
at one time as continuous as the roll of a drum. Prisoners were guarded
through the streets, and wagons, conveying wounded men, were continually
passing.

Stragglers from the routed army of Waterloo were to be met in all
directions, many of them disabled by their pursuers, or the fatigues of
a harried retreat. Pride was forgotten in extreme misery, and they were
grateful for any attention or assistance. One of them was taken into
our institution as a servant. He had been in the army eighteen years,
fifteen of which he had served as drummer. He had been in some of the
severest battles, had gone through the Russian campaign, and was among
the few of his regiment who survived the carnage of Waterloo. And yet
this man, who had been familiar with death more than half his life, and
who at times talked as though he were a perfect tornado in the field,
was as arrant a poltroon as ever skulked.

After the Allied Troops entered Paris, and were divided among the
inhabitants, some Prussian cavalry soldiers were quartered on us.
Collisions occasionally took place between them and the scholars; and in
one instance, one of them entered a study-room in an insulting manner,
and in consequence thereof made a progress from the top of the stairs to
the bottom with a celerity that would have done credit to his regiment
in a charge. His comrades armed themselves to avenge the indignity, and
the students, eager for the fray, sallied out to meet them with pistols
and fencing-foils, the latter with buttons snapped off and points
sharpened. There was hopeful promise of a very respecta