ooked round and saw a score of generals and officers of
high rank, all of them men who, without flattery, might be called great.
Junot was there, and Narbonne, the Emperor's aide-de-camp, and all the
chiefs of the army. There were common soldiers there as well, not one of
whom would have given up his bed of straw to a marshal of France. Some
who were leaning their backs against the wall had dropped off to sleep
where they stood, because there was no room to lie down; others lay
stretched out on the floor--it was a mass of men packed together so
closely for the sake of warmth, that I looked about in vain for a nook
to lie down in. I walked over this flooring of human bodies; some of the
men growled, the others said nothing, but no one budged. They would
not have moved out of the way of a cannon ball just then; but under the
circumstances, one was not obliged to practise the maxims laid down by
the Child's Guide to Manners. Groping about, I saw at the end of
the barn a sort of ledge up above in the roof; no one had thought of
scrambling up to it, possibly no one had felt equal to the effort. I
clambered up and ensconced myself upon it; and as I lay there at full
length, I looked down at the men huddled together like sheep below. It
was a pitiful sight, yet it almost made me laugh. A man here and
there was gnawing a frozen carrot, with a kind of animal satisfaction
expressed in his face; and thunderous snores came from generals who lay
muffled up in ragged cloaks. The whole barn was lighted by a blazing
pine log; it might have set the place on fire, and no one would have
troubled to get up and put it out.

"I lay down on my back, and, naturally, just before I dropped off, my
eyes traveled to the roof above me, and then I saw that the main beam
which bore the weight of the joists was being slightly shaken from east
to west. The blessed thing danced about in fine style. 'Gentlemen,'
said I, 'one of our friends outside has a mind to warm himself at
our expense.' A few moments more and the beam was sure to come down.
'Gentlemen! gentlemen!' I shouted, 'we shall all be killed in a minute!
Look at the beam there!' and I made such a noise that my bed-fellows
awoke at last. Well, sir, they all stared up at the beam, and then those
who had been sleeping turned round and went off to sleep again, while
those who were eating did not even stop to answer me.

"Seeing how things were, there was nothing for it but to get up and
leave my