dread of punishment with a base and ignoble fear of death. "And
these are the men," thought I, "who talk of their charging home through
the dense squares of Austria--who have hunted the leopard into the sea!
and have carried the flag of France over the high Alps!"

A bold rebel, whatever may be the cause against which he revolts, will
always be sure of a certain ascendency. Men are prone to attribute power
to pretension, and he who stands foremost in the breach will at least
win the suffrages of those whose cause he assumes to defend. In this way
if happened that exactly as my comrades fell in my esteem, I was
elevated in theirs; and while I took a very depreciating estimate of
their courage, _they_ conceived a very exalted opinion of mine.

It was altogether inexplicable to see these men, many of them the
bronzed veterans of a dozen campaigns--the wounded and distinguished
soldiers in many a hard-fought field, yielding up their opinions and
sacrificing their convictions to a raw and untried stripling, who had
never yet seen an enemy.

With a certain fluency of speech I possessed also a readiness at picking
up information, and arraying the scattered fragments of news into a
certain consistence, which greatly imposed upon my comrades. A quick eye
for man[oe]uvres, and a shrewd habit of combining in my own mind the
various facts that came before me, made me appear to them a perfect
authority on military matters, of which I talked, I shame to say, with
all the confidence and presumption of an accomplished general. A few
lucky guesses, and a few half hints, accidentally confirmed, completed
all that was wanting; and what says "Le Jeune Maurice," was the
inevitable question that followed each piece of flying gossip, or every
rumor that rose of a projected movement.

I have seen a good deal of the world since that time, and I am bound to
confess, that not a few of the great reputations I have witnessed, have
stood upon grounds very similar, and not a whit more stable than my own.
A bold face, a ready tongue, a promptness to support, with my right
hand, whatever my lips were pledged to, and, above all, good luck, made
me the king of my company; and although that sovereignty only extended
to half a squadron of hussars, it was a whole universe to me.

So stood matters when, on the 23d of June, orders came for the whole
_corps d'armee_ to hold itself in readiness for a forward movement.
Rations for two days were distributed,