ers. Without being mortal, the wound was extremely severe, and
the surgeon who attended him, and who was esteemed the most skilful in
Naples, cut his chest completely open, in order the better to treat it.
An India-rubber tube was inserted in the centre of the gash to receive
the oozing blood. So terrible was the operation, that the surgeon wished
him to be held down by four strong men. To this Florestano refused to
submit, and bore the anguish without a movement or a murmur. He was then
told that the greatest care and regularity of living were essential to
his existence. His answer was, "that he preferred a month's life of
freedom to an age of solicitude about living;" and with this ghastly
gaping wound he lived, in spite of the predictions of his leech, through
fifteen campaigns. In command of a brigade of cavalry, he took share in
the Russian expedition, and, on the night of the 6th December 1812, it
fell to him to escort Napoleon from Osmiana to Wilna. Out of two
regiments, not more than thirty or forty men arrived. The emperor's
postilion was frozen to death, and had to be replaced by an Italian
officer, who volunteered his services. The two colonels of the brigade
had their extremities frozen, and Florestano Pepe shared the same fate,
losing half his right foot, and only reaching Dantzic through the
assistance of a devoted aide-de-camp. But, even thus mutilated, the
heroic soldier would not abandon his beloved profession, and, during the
final struggle against the Austrians in 1815, he was made
lieutenant-general, by Murat, upon the field of battle.

On assuming command of his regiment, Colonel Pepe was as much struck by
its martial aspect, as he was vexed at its clumsy manoeuvres, and low
moral condition. Both men and officers lacked instruction. The former
were most incorrigible thieves. Plundering was a pretty common practice
with the French armies in Spain, even in Suchet's corps, which was one
of the best disciplined: and the Italians, anxious not to be outdone in
any respect by their allies, were the most accomplished of depredators.
They had come in fact to hold theft meritorious, and designated it by
the elegant name of _poetry_. This slang term had become so general,
that it was used even by the officers; and the adjutant of Pepe's
regiment, in reporting a marauder to him, calls the man a _poet_. The
prosaic application of a couple of hundred lashes to the shoulders of
this culprit, served as a warning to