slight
line of dark beard on her upper lip. "My husband 's a pioneer in the
Twenty-second, and says they're nothing better than poltroons. How
we made them run at Arcole! Wasn't it Arcole?" said she, as a buzz of
laughter ran through the crowd.

"_Tonnerre de guerre_" cried the little man, "if I was at them!"

A loud burst of merriment met this warlike speech; while the maimed
soldier, apparently pleased with the creature's courage, smiled blandly
on him as he said, "Let me have two sous' worth of your chestnuts."

Leaving the party to their discussion, I now entered the house, and
edging my way upstairs between trunks and packing-cases, arrived at
the drawing-room. The general had just come in; he had been the whole
morning at Court, and was eating a hurried dinner in order to return to
the Tuileries for the evening reception. Although his manner towards me
was kind and cordial in the extreme, I thought he looked agitated and
even depressed, and seemed much older and more broken than before.

"You see, Burke, you 'll have little time to enjoy Paris gayeties; we
leave to-morrow."

"Indeed, sir! So soon?"

"Yes; Lasalle is off already; Dorsenne starts in two hours; and we three
rendezvous at Coblentz. I wished much to see you," continued he, after
a minute's pause; "but I could not get away from Versailles even for a
day. Tell me, have you got a letter I wrote to you when at Mayence? I
mean, is it still in existence?"

"Yes, sir," said I, somewhat astonished at the question.

"I wrote it hurriedly," added he, with something of confusion in his
manner; "do let me see it."

I unlocked my writing-desk at once, and handed him his own letter. He
opened it hastily, and having thrown his eyes speedily across it, said,
and in a voice far more at ease than before,--

"That will do. I feared lest perhaps--But no matter; this is better than
I thought."

With this he gave the letter back into my hands, and appeared for some
moments engaged in deep thought; then, with a voice and manner which
showed a different channel was given to his thoughts, he said,--

"The game has opened; the Austrians have invaded Bavaria. The whole
disposable force of France is on the march,--a hurried movement; but so
it is. Napoleon always strikes like his own emblem, the eagle."

"True, sir; but even that serves to heighten the chivalrous feeling of
the soldier, when the sword springs from the scabbard at the call of
honor, and is not draw