covered
with silver dishes and numerous flasks of wine. A few words sufficed for
my introduction; and a few glasses of champagne placed me as thoroughly
at my ease as though I had passed my life amongst them, and never heard
any other conversation than the last movement of the French army, and
their projects for future campaigns.

"And so," said the colonel, after hearing from me a short account of the
events which had induced me to turn my eyes to France,--"and so you'd be
a soldier? _Eh bien!_ see nothing better going myself. There 's Davernac
will tell you the same, though he has lost his arm in the service."

"Oui, pardieu," said the officer on my right; "I am not the man to
dissuade him from a career I 've ever loved."

"A vous, mon ami," said the young officer who first addressed me on my
arrival, as he held out his glass and clinked it against mine. "I
hope we shall have you one of these days as our guide through the dark
streets of London. The time may not be so distant as you think; never
shake your head at it."

"It is not that I would mean," said I, eagerly.

"What then?" said the colonel. "You don't suppose such an expedition as
ours could fail of success?"

"Nor that either," replied I; "I am not so presumptuous as to form an
opinion on the subject."

"Diantre, then! what is it?"

"Simply this: that whatever fortune awaits me, I shall never be found
fighting against the country under whose rule I was born. England may
not be--alas! she has not been--just to us. But whatever resistance I
might have offered in the ranks of my countrymen, I shall never descend
to in an invading army. No, no; if France have no other war than
with England,--if she have not the cause of Continental liberty at
heart,--she 'll have no blood of mine shed in her Service."

"Sacristi!" said the colonel, sipping his wine coolly, "you had better
keep these same opinions of yours to your self. There 's a certain
little General we have at Paris who rarely permits people to reason
about the cause of the campaign. However, it is growing late now, and we
'll not discuss the matter at present. Auguste, will you take Burke to
your quarters? And to-morrow I 'll call on the general about his brevet
for the Polytechnique."

I felt now that I had spoken more warmly than was pleasing to the party;
but the sentiments I had announced were only such as in my heart I had
resolved to abide by, and I was pleased that an opportunity so soon