colonel, I had neither seen nor spoken to one of my new corps.

That evening I joined my regiment, and took up my quarters in the
barracks, where already the rumor of important political events had
reached the officers, and they stood in groups discussing the chances of
a war, or listening to the "Moniteur," which was read out by one of
the party. What a strange thrill it sent through me to think that I was
privy to the deepest secret of that important step on which the peace of
Europe was resting,--that I had heard the very words as they fell from
the lips of him on whom the destiny of millions then depended! With what
a different interpretation to me came those passages in the Government
journal which breathed of peace, and spoke of painful sacrifices to
avoid a war, for which already his very soul was thirsting! and how to
my young heart did that passion for glory exalt him who could throw all
into the scale! The proud position he occupied,--the mighty chief of
a mighty nation; the adulation in which he daily lived; the gorgeous
splendor of a Court no country in Europe equalled,--all these (and more,
his future destiny) did lie set upon the cast for the great game his
manly spirit gloried in.

In such thoughts as these I lived as in a world of my own. Companionship
I had none; my brother officers, with few exceptions, had risen from the
ranks, and were of that class which felt no pleasure save in the coarse
amusements of the barrack-room or the vulgar jests of the service. The
better classes lived studiously apart from these, and made no approaches
to intimacy with any newly joined officer with whose family and
connections they were unacquainted; and I, from my change of country,
stood thus alone, unacknowledged and unknown. At first this isolation
pained and grieved me, but gradually it became less irksome; and when
at length they who had at first avoided and shunned my intimacy showed
themselves disposed to know me, my pride, which before would have been
gratified by such an acknowledgment, was now wounded, and I coolly
declined their advances.

Some weeks passed in this manner, during which I never saw or heard
of De Beauvais, and at length began to feel somewhat offended at the
suddenness with which he seemed to drop an intimacy begun at his own
desire; when one evening, as I had returned to my barrack-room after
parade, I heard a knock at my door. I rose and opened it, when, to my
surprise, I beheld De Beauva