re I was fifteen, received this."

He took down the sword that hung over the chimney as he said these
words, and drawing it from the scabbard, pointed to the inscription,
which in letters of gold adorned the blade,--"Rivoli," "Arcole;" then
turning the reverse, I read,--"Au Lieutenant Charles Gustave de Meudon,
Troisieme Cuirassiers."

"This, then, is your name?" said I, repeating it half aloud.

"Yes," replied he, as he drew himself up, and seemed struggling to
repress a feeling of pride that sent the blood rushing to his cheek and
brow.

"How I should like to be you!" was the wish that burst from me at that
moment, and which I could not help uttering in words.

"Helas, non!" said the Frenchman, sorrowfully, and turning away to
conceal his agitation; "I have broken with fortune many a day since."

The tone of bitter disappointment in which these words were spoken left
no room for reply, and we were both silent.

Charles--for so I must now call him to my reader, as he compelled me to
do so with himself--Charles was the first to speak.

"Not many months ago my thoughts were very like your own; but since then
how many disappointments! how many reverses!"

He walked hurriedly up and down the room as he said this; then stopping
suddenly before me, laid his hand on my shoulder, and with a voice of
impressive earnestness said:--

"Be advised by me: join not with these people; do not embark with them
in their enterprise. Their enterprise!" repeated he, scornfully: "they
have none. The only men of action here are they with whom no man of
honor, no soldier, could associate; their only daring, some deed of
rapine and murder. No! liberty is not to be achieved by such hands as
these. And the other,--the men of political wisdom, who prate about
reform and the people's rights, who would gladly see such as me
adventure in the cause they do not care themselves to advocate,--they
are all false alike. Give me," cried he, with energy, and stamping his
foot upon the ground,--"give me a demibrigade of ours, some squadrons
of Milhaud's cavalry, and trois bouches a feu to open the way before us.
But why do I speak of this? Some midnight burning, some savage murder,
some cowardly attack on unarmed and defenceless people,--these are our
campaigns here. And shall I stain this blade in such a conflict?"

"But you will go back to France?" said I, endeavoring to say something
that might rally him from his gloom.

"Never," replied he,