rmy to the master strategist.

The private had answered the question in the words of Sergeant Lagroin.
It was a saying long afterwards among the Old Guard, though it may not
be found in the usual histories of that time, where every battalion,
almost every company, had a watchword, which passed to make room for
others, as victory followed victory.

"Soldier of the Old Guard," said Valmond again, "how came you by those
scars upon your forehead?"

"I was a drummer at Auerstadt, a corporal at Austerlitz, a sergeant
at Waterloo," rolled back the reply, in a high, quavering voice, as
memories of great events blew in upon the ancient fires of his spirit.

"Ah!" answered Valmond, nodding eagerly; "with Davoust at
Auerstadt--thirty against sixty thousand men. At eight o'clock, all fog
and mist, as you marched up the defile towards the Sonnenberg hills, the
brave Gudin and his division feeling their way to Blucher. Comrade,
how still you stepped, your bayonet thrust out before you, clearing the
mists, your eyes straining, your teeth set, ready to thrust. All at once
a quick-moving mass sprang out of the haze, and upon you, with hardly
a sound of warning; and an army of hussars launched themselves at your
bayonets! You bent that wall back like a piece of steel, and broke it.
Comrade, that was the beginning, in the mist of morning. Tell me how you
fared in the light of evening, at the end of that bloody day."

The old soldier was trembling. There was no sign, no movement, from the
crowd. Across the fields came the sharpening of a scythe, the cry of the
grasshoppers, and the sound of a mill-wheel arose near by. In the mill
itself, far up in a deep dormer window, sat Parpon with his black cat,
looking down upon the scene with a grim smiling.

The sergeant saw that mist fronting Sonnenberg rise up, and show ten
thousand splendid cavalry and fifty thousand infantry, with a king and
a prince to lead them down upon those malleable but unmoving squares
of French infantry. He saw himself drumming the Prussians back and his
Frenchmen on.

"Beautiful God!" he cried proudly, "that was a day! And every man of the
Third Corps that time lift up the lid of hell and drop a Prussian in.
I stand beside Davoust once, and ping! come a bullet, and take off his
chapeau. It fell upon my drum. I stoop and pick it up and hand it to
him, but I keep drumming with one hand all the time. 'Comrade,' say I,
'the army thanks you for your courtesy.' 'Brothe