youth over again, and in tracing old memories, old scenes, and old
impressions, the smouldering fire of my heart has shot up a transient
flame so bright as to throw a glow even over the chill of my old age.

It is, after all, no small privilege to have lived and borne one's part in
stirring times; to have breasted the ocean of life when the winds were up
and the waves ran high; to have mingled, however humbly, in eventful
scenes, and had one's share in the mighty deeds that were to become
history afterward. It is assuredly in such trials that humanity comes out
best, and that the character of man displays all its worthiest and noblest
attributes. Amid such scenes I began my life, and, in the midst of similar
ones, if my prophetic foresight deceive me not, I am like to end it.

Having said this much of and for myself, I am sure the reader will pardon
me if I am not equally communicative with respect to another, and if I
pass over the remainder of that interval which I spent at Komorn. Even
were love-making--which assuredly it is not--as interesting to the spectator
as to those engaged, I should scruple to recount events which delicacy
should throw a vail over; nor am I induced, even by the example of the
wittiest periodical writer of the age, to make a "feuilleton" of my own
marriage. Enough that I say, despite my shattered form, my want of
fortune, my unattested pretension to rank or station, Mademoiselle
D'Estelles accepted me, and the Emperor most graciously confirmed her
claims to wealth, thus making me one of the richest and the very happiest
among the Soldiers of Fortune.

The Pere Delamoy, now superior of a convent at Pisa, came to Komorn to
perform the ceremony; and if he could not altogether pardon those who had
uprooted the ancient monarchy of France, yet did not conceal his gratitude
to him who had restored the Church and rebuilt the altar.

There may be some who deem this closing abrupt, and who would wish for
even a word about the bride, her bouquet, and her blushes. I can not
afford to gratify so laudable a curiosity, at the same time that a lurking
vanity induces me to say, that any one wishing to know more about the
"personnel" of my wife or myself, has but to look at David's picture, or
the engraving made from it, of the Emperor's marriage. There they will
find, in the left hand corner, partly concealed behind the Grand Duke de
Berg, an officer of the Guides, supporting on his arm a young and very
bea