h through the breasts of the division like glass. My arm was numb
from the bullet which struck the Eagle, but I changed hands and carried
it forward. I can see the big Marshal still. The Emperor was looking
on. It was terrible. It didn't seem that mortal man could make it,
but we kept on, still, silent, until we came in touch with the
Austrians and then we cut them in two. It was magnificent."

"I was with Marshal Mortier when we were caught in the pass of
Durrenstein," broke out one of the privates, an old Eagle-guard. "We
fought all day and all night in that trap against awful odds, waiting,
hoping, until toward morning we heard the thunder of Dupont's guns. We
were so close together that we seized the throats of the Russians, and
they ours. We begged the Marshal to use a boat we had found to cross
over the Danube and escape. 'No,' he said, 'certainly not! I will not
desert my brave comrades! I will save them or die with them.' Ah, he
was a brave man that day."

"And that such a man could betray the Emperor!" exclaimed another.

"I never could understand it," said one of the soldiers.

"That was the day," said a third, "when our drums were shot to pieces
and we had to beat the long roll on the iron cooking cans."

"You remember it well, comrade."

"I was a drummer there. I remember there were but two thousand of the
six thousand in the division that answered roll call that day."

"I carried that Eagle into Moscow," said a scarred, one-armed veteran.
"I would have carried it back, but I was wounded at Malojaroslavets and
would have died but for you, my friend."

"And I carried it across the Niemen after that retreat was over,"
returned the other, acknowledging the generous tribute of his old
fellow soldier.

"Sacre-bleu! How cold it was. Not many of you can remember that march
because so few survived it. The battalions in Spain can thank God they
escaped it," said another.

"It was hot enough there, and those English gave us plenty of
fighting," added one of the veterans who had fought against Wellington.

"Aye, that they did, I'll warrant," continued the veteran of Russia.
"The Emperor who marched on foot with the rest of us. Before crossing
the Beresina--I shudder to think of the thousands drowned then. I
dream about it sometimes at night--we were ordered to break up the
Eagles and throw them into the river."

"And did you?"

"Not I. That is the only order I disobeyed. I carried it