hand. The honour of Don Ignacio Trueno
Relampago was never in greater danger, for he instantly turned much
whiter than his own pocket-handkerchief: but the Spaniard is a brave
fellow, after all; and seeing that I drew out my pistols, he drew his
sword, ordered his troopers to mount, and prepared for battle. But,
who can fight against fortune? Our horses, which had been picketed at
a few yards' distance in the depth of the shade, were gone. A French
battalion of tirailleurs, accidentally coming on our route, had
surrounded the grove, and carried off the horses unperceived, while
our gallant troopers were chorusing the songster. The sentinel left in
charge of them had, of course, given way to the allurements of "sweet
nature's kind restorer, balmy sleep," and awoke only to find himself
in French hands. Don Ignacio would have fought a legion of fiends; but
seven hundred and fifty sharpshooters were a much more unmanageable
affair; and on our holding a council of war, (which never fights,) and
with a whole circle of bayonets glittering at our breasts, I advised a
surrender without loss of time. The troopers were already disarmed,
and the Don, appealing to me as evidence that he had done all that
could be required by the most punctilious valour, surrendered his
sword with the grace of a hero of romance. The Frenchmen enjoyed the
entire scene prodigiously, laughed a great deal, drank our healths in
our own bottles, and finished by a general request that the Don would
indulge them with an encore of the chant which had so tickled their
ears during their advance in the wood. The Don complied, _malgre_,
_bongre_; and at the conclusion of this feat, the French colonel,
resolved not to be outdone in any thing, called on one of his
subalterns for a song. The subaltern hopelessly searched his memory
for its lyrical stores; but after half a dozen snatches of "chansons,"
and breaking down in them all, he volunteered, in despair, what he
pronounced, "the most popular love-song in all Italy." Probably not a
syllable of it was understood by any one present but myself; yet this
did not prevent its being applauded to the skies, and pronounced one
of the most brilliant specimens of Italian sensibility. It was in
_Latin_, and a fierce attack on the Jesuits, which the young officer,
a palpable _philosophe_, had brought with him from the _symposia_ of
the "Ecole Polytechnique:"--

Mortem norunt animare[7]
Et tumultus suscitare,
I