corporated
in the Pontoon Troop of the Guard, and was constantly on active service
in Germany, lastly the poor fellow made the Russian campaign."

"We are brothers-in-arms then, to some extent," said Genestas; "I have
made the same campaigns. Only an iron frame would stand the tricks
played by so many different climates. My word for it, those who are
still standing on their stumps after marching over Italy, Egypt,
Germany, Portugal, and Russia must have applied to Providence and taken
out a patent for living."

"Just so, you will see a solid fragment of a man," answered Benassis.
"You know all about the Retreat from Moscow; it is useless to tell you
about it. This man I have told you of is one of the pontooners of the
Beresina; he helped to construct the bridge by which the army made the
passage, and stood waist-deep in water to drive in the first piles.
General Eble, who was in command of the pontooners, could only find
forty-two men who were plucky enough, in Gondrin's phrase, to tackle
that business. The general himself came down to the stream to hearten
and cheer the men, promising each of them a pension of a thousand francs
and the Cross of the Legion of Honor. The first who went down into the
Beresina had his leg taken off by a block of ice, and the man himself
was washed away; but you will better understand the difficulty of the
task when you hear the end of the story. Of the forty-two volunteers,
Gondrin is the only one alive to-day. Thirty-nine of them lost their
lives in the Beresina, and the two others died miserably in a Polish
hospital.

"The poor fellow himself only returned from Wilna in 1814, to find the
Bourbons restored to power. General Eble (of whom Gondrin cannot speak
without tears in his eyes) was dead. The pontooner was deaf, and his
health was shattered; and as he could neither read nor write, he found
no one left to help him or to plead his cause. He begged his way to
Paris, and while there made application at the War Office, not for the
thousand francs of extra pension which had been promised to him, nor yet
for the Cross of the Legion of Honor, but only for the bare pension due
to him after twenty-two years of service, and I do not know how many
campaigns. He did not obtain his pension or his traveling expenses;
he did not even receive his arrears of pay. He spent a year in making
fruitless solicitations, holding out his hands in vain to those whom he
had saved; and at the end of it he cam