ir around us.

At eight we took our breakfast with an appetite, as you can imagine.

Not even on my wedding-day did I eat a better meal, and it is a
pleasure even now to think of it. When we are old we are not so
enthusiastic about such things as when we are young, but still we
always recall them with satisfaction.

This breakfast sustained us a long time, but the poor conscripts with
only a few crumbs as it were soaked in rain water, had a hard time next
day--the 18th. We were to have a short but terrible campaign.

Though all is over now, yet I cannot think of those terrible sufferings
without emotion, or without thanking God that we escaped them. The sun
shone again and the weather was fine,--we had hardly finished our
breakfast when the drums began to beat the assembly along the whole
line.

The Prussian rear-guard had just left Sombref, and it was a question
whether we should pursue them. Some said we ought to send out the
light-horse, to pick up the prisoners. But no one paid any attention
to them,--the Emperor knew what he was doing.

But I remember that everybody was astonished notwithstanding, because
it is the custom to profit by victories. The veterans had never seen
anything like it. They thought that the Emperor was preparing some
grand stroke; that Ney had turned the enemy's line, and so forth.

Meanwhile the roll commenced and General Gerard reviewed the Fourth
corps. Our battalion had suffered most, because in the three attacks
we had always been in the front.

The Commandant Gemeau and Captain Vidal were wounded, and Captains
Gregoire and Vignot killed, seven lieutenants and second lieutenants,
and three hundred and sixty men _hors de combat_.

Zebede said that it was worse than at Montmirail, and that they would
finish us up completely before we got through.

Fortunately the fourth battalion arrived from Metz under Commandant
Delong and took our place in the line.

Captain Florentin ordered us to file off to the left, and we went back
to the village near the church, where a quantity of carts were
stationed.

We were then distributed in squads to superintend the removal of the
wounded. Several detachments of chasseurs were ordered to escort the
convoys to Fleurus as there was no room for them at Ligny; the church
was already filled with the poor fellows. We did not select those to
be removed, the surgeons did that, as we could hardly distinguish in
numbers of cases, between the