to die like
a dog, for theft. I was innocent--that I swore on the holy Gospels,
and call God to witness--but the money, two crowns, was found on me;
and I could not tell how it got there, except that I had been
carousing in bad company. Count Saxe being very strict against
marauding, I was tried and condemned to be shot.

The whole business, trial and all, was over in a day, and on a summer
morning I was led out to be shot on a bastion of the walls of Mons. It
was a very beautiful morning, I remember, and also that the buglers,
playing the dirge, played horribly out of time, as they always do at
military executions. As I was on my way to die, Count Saxe, with a
half dozen officers galloping after him, met the procession. I raised
my dull eyes and looked him in the face--a thing I would not have
done, except that a man who has but a quarter of an hour to live need
not be bashful about anything. Count Saxe asked about my case, and the
officer in charge said I was to die for stealing two crowns--and that
I had been a good soldier. Count Saxe rode up close to me.

"What a fool you were to risk your life for a couple of crowns," he
said.

"I risk it every day," I replied, "for a couple of sous. But I am
innocent."

"Give him his life," said Count Saxe.

The buglers changed their tune from a dirge to a lively marching air;
the drummer beat a couple of ruffles on his drum, and we faced
about--I think the honest soldiers who were going to shoot me felt
almost as glad as I. Men have to be driven and threatened with
punishment to keep them from shirking when it is necessary to shoot a
comrade, and there would certainly be a mutiny every time, except that
a certain number of muskets have no ball cartridges in them--and every
fellow thinks that he has got an empty cartridge.

That same day I wrote a letter to Count Saxe, expressing, as well as I
knew how, my thanks for my life. I took it myself to his quarters--and
as good luck would have it, while I was begging a pert young aide to
give the letter to Count Saxe, the count himself came out of his tent.
He read the letter--asked me if I wrote it--and not believing me, told
me to come into his tent, sit down at his table, and write at his
dictation. I did so, and I have written every line to which his name
is signed since, except his love letters. Writing is, in itself, no
great accomplishment. Monsieur Voltaire himself has said that a man
may have a great deal of esprit and