You will, therefore, probably sympathize in the general amazement, that, at a moment when the sex is signalizing itself from pole to pole—when a Grace Darling obtains the palm for intrepidity—when the Honourable Miss Grimston's Prayer-Book is read in churches—when Mrs Fry, like hunger, eats through stone walls to call felons to repentance—when a king has descended from his throne, and a prince from royal highnesshood, to reward the virtues of the fair partners to whom they were unable to impart the rights of the blood-royal—when the fairest specimen of modern sculpture has been supplied by a female hand, and woman, in short, is at a premium throughout the universe, all this waste of sermonizing should have been thrown, like a wet blanket, over her shoulders!

But this is not enough, dear Mr Editor. I wish to direct your attention towards an exclusive branch of the grievance. I have no doubt that, in your earlier years, instead of courting your fair friends, as Burns appears to have done, with copies of your own works, you used to present unto them the "Legacy of Dr Gregory to his Daughters"—or "Mrs Chapone's Letters," or Miss Bowdler's, or Mrs Trimmer's, appropriately bound and gilt; and thus apprized of the superabundance of prose provided for their edification, are prepared to feel, with me, that if they have not Mrs Barbauld and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded by the frippery tomes which load the counters of our bazars. This perception has come of itself. If I could only be fortunate enough to enlarge your scope of comprehension!

Mr dear Mr Editor, I am what is called a lone woman. Shakspeare, through whose recklessness originate half the commonplaces of our land's language, thought proper to define such a condition as "SINGLE BLESSEDNESS"—though he aptly enough engrafts it on a thorn! For my part, I cannot enough admire the theory of certain modern poets, that an angel is an ethereal being, composed by the interunion in heaven, of two mortals who have been faithfully attached on earth—and as to "blessedness" being ever "single," either in this world or the next, I do not believe a word about the matter! "Happiness," Lord Byron assures us, "was born a twin!"

I do not mean to complain of my condition—far from it. But I wish to say, that since, from the small care taken by English parents to double the condition of their daughters, it is clear the state of "single blessedness" is of higher account in our own "favoured country" than in any other in Europe; it certainly behoves the guardians of the public weal to afford due protection and encouragement to spinsters.

Every body knows that Great Britain is the very fatherland of old maids. In Catholic countries, the superfluous daughters of a family are disposed of in convents and beguinages, just as in Turkey and China they are, still more humanely, drowned. In certain provinces of the east, pigs are expressly kept, to be turned into the streets at daybreak, for the purpose of devouring the female infants exposed during the night—thus benevolently securing them from the after torments of single "blessedness."

But a far nobler arrangement was made by that greatest of modern legislators, Napoleon—whose code entitles the daughters of a house to share, equally with sons, in its property and bequeathments; and in France, a woman with a dowery is as sure of courtship and marriage, as of death and burial. Nay, so much is marriage regarded among the French as the indispensable condition of the human species, that parents proceed as openly to the task of procuring a proper husband for their daughter, as of providing her with shoes and stockings. No false delicacy—no pitiful manoeuvres! The affair is treated like any other negotiation. It is a mere question of two and two making four, which enables two to make one. How far more honest than the angling and trickery of English match-making—which, by keeping men constantly on the defensive, predisposes them against attractions to which they might otherwise give way! However, as I said before, I do not wish to complain of my condition.

I only consider it hard that the interests of the wives of England are to be exclusively studied, when the unfortunate females who lack the consolations of matronhood are in so far greater want of sustainment; and that all the theories of the perfectionizement of the fair sex now issuing from the press, should purport to instruct young ladies how to qualify themselves for wives, and wives how to qualify themselves for heaven; and not a word addressed, either in the way of exhortation, remonstrance, or applause, to the highly respectable order of the female community whose cause I have taken on myself to advocate. Have not the wives of England husbands to whisper wisdom into their ears? Why, then, are they to be coaxed or lectured by tabby-bound volumes, while we are left neglected in a corner? Our earthly career, the Lord he knows, is far more trying—our temptations as much greater, as our pleasures are less; and it is mortifying indeed to find our behavior a thing so little worth interference. We may conduct ourselves, it seems, as indecorously as we think proper, for any thing the united booksellers of the United Kingdom care to the contrary!

Not that I very much wonder at literary men regarding the education of wives as a matter of moment. The worse halves of Socrates, Milton, Hooker, have been thorns in their sides, urging them into blasphemy against the sex. But is this a reason, I only ask you, for leaving, like an uncultivated waste, that holy army of martyrs, the spinsterhood of Great Britain?

Mr Editor, act like a man! Speak up for us! Write up for us! Tell these little writers of little books, that however they may think to secure dinners and suppers to themselves, by currying favour with the rulers of the roast, the greatest of all women have been SINGLE! Tell them of our Virgin Queen, Elizabeth—the patroness of their calling, the protectress of learning and learned men. Tell them of Joan of Arc, the conqueror of even English chivalry. Tell them of all the tender mercies of the Soeurs de Charite! Tell them that, from the throne to the hospital, the spinster, unharassed by the cares of private life, has been found most fruitful in public virtue.

Then, perhaps, you will persuade them that we are worth our schooling; and the "Old Maids of England" may look forward to receive a tabby-bound manual of their duties, as well as its "Wives." I have really no patience with the selfish conceit of these married women, who fancy their well-doing of such importance. See how they were held by the ancients!—treated like beasts of burden, and denied the privilege of all mental accomplishment. When the Grecian matrons affected to weep over the slain, after some victory of Themistocles, the Athenian general bade them "dry their tears, and practise a single virtue in atonement of all their weaknesses." It was to their single women the philosophers of the portico addressed their lessons; not to the domestic drudges, whom they considered only worthy to inspect the distaffs of their slaves, and produce sons for the service of the country.

In Bath, Brighton, and other spinster colonies of this island, the demand for such a work would be prodigious. The sale of canary-birds and poodles might suffer a temporary depression in consequence; but this is comparatively unimportant. Perhaps—who knows—so positive a recognition of our estate as a definite class of the community, might lead to the long desiderated establishment of a lay convent, somewhat similar to the beguinages of Flanders, though less ostensibly subject to religious law—a convent where single gentlewomen might unite together in their meals and devotions, under the government of a code of laws set forth in their tabby-bound Koran.

Methinks I see it—a modern temple of Vesta, without its tell-tale fires—square, rectangular, simple, airy, isolated—chaste as Diana and quiet as the grave—the frescoed walls commemorating the legend of Saint Ursula and her eleven thousand—the sacrifice of Jephtha's daughter—Elizabeth Carter translating Epictetus—Harriet Martineau revising the criminal code. In the hall, dear Editor, should hang the portrait of Christopher North—in that locality, appropriately, a Kit-cat!

Ponder upon this! The distinction is worthy consideration. As the newspapers say, it is an "unprecedented opportunity for investment!" For the sole Helicon of the institution shall be—"Blackwood's Entire" its lady abbess—

Your humble servant to command, (for the old maids of England,)

TABITHA GLUM. 1st Jan. 1844. Lansdowne, Bath.

* * * * *



MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.

PART VIII.

"Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind, Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in the pitched battle heard Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?" SHAKSPEARE.

The action was a series of those grand manoeuvres in which the Prussians excelled all the other troops of Europe. From the spot on which I stood, the whole immense plain, to the foot of the defiles of Argonne, was visible; but the combat, or rather the succession of combats, was fought along the range of hills at the distance of some miles. These I could discover only by the roar of the guns, and by an occasional cloud of smoke rising among the trees. The chief Prussian force stood in columns in the plain below me, in dark masses, making an occasional movement in advance from time to time, or sending forth a mounted officer to the troops in action. Parks of artillery lay formed in the spaces between the columns, and the baggage, a much more various and curious sight than the troops, halting in the wide grounds of what seemed some noble mansion, had already begun to exhibit the appearance of a country fair. Excepting this busy part of the scene, few things struck me as less like what I had conceived of actual war, than the quietness of every thing before and around me. The columns might nearly as well have been streets of rock; and the engagement in front was so utterly lost to view in the forest, that, except for the occasional sound of the cannon, I might have looked upon the whole scene as the immense picture of a quiet Flemish holiday. The landscape was beautiful. Some showery nights had revived the verdure, of which France has so seldom to boast in autumn; and the green of the plain almost rivalled the delicious verdure of home. The chain of hills, extending for many a league, was covered with one of the most extensive forests of the kingdom. The colours of this vast mass of foliage were glowing in all the powerful hues of the declining year, and the clouds, which slowly descended upon the horizon, with all the tinges of the west burning through their folds, appeared scarcely more than a loftier portion of those sheets of gold and purple which shone along the crown of the hills.

But while I lingered, gazing on the rich and tranquil luxury of the scene, almost forgetting that there was war in the world, I was suddenly recalled to a more substantial condition of that world by the sound of a trumpet, and the arrival of my troop, who had at length struggled up the hill, evidently surprised at finding me there, when the suttlers were in full employment within a few hundred yards below. Their petition was unanimous, to be allowed to refresh themselves and their horses at this rare opportunity; and their request, though respectful in its words, yet was so decisive in its tone, that to comply was fully as much my policy as my inclination. I mounted my horse, and proceeded, according to the humble "command" of my brave dragoons. This was a most popular movement—the men, the very horses, evidently rejoiced. The fatigue of our hard riding was past in a moment—the riders laughed and sang, the chargers snorted and pranced; and, when we trotted, huzzaing, into the baggage lines, half their motley crowd evidently conceived that some sovereign prince was come in fiery haste to make the campaign. We were received with all the applause that is given by the suttler to all arrivals with a full purse in the holsters, and a handsome valise, no matter from what source filled, on the croupe of the charger. But we had scarcely begun to taste the gifts that fortune had sent us in the shape of huge sausages and brown bread—the luxuries! for which the soldier of Teutchland wooes the goddess of war—than we found ourselves ordered to move off the ground, by the peremptory mandate of a troop of the Royal Guard, who had followed our movement, more hungry, more thirsty, and more laced and epauleted than ourselves. The Hulans tossed their lances; and it had nearly been a business of cold steel, when their officer rode up, to demand the sword of the presumptuous mutineer who had thus daringly questioned his right to starve us. While I was deliberating for a moment between the shame of a forced retreat, and the awkwardness of taking the bull by the horns, in the shape of the King's Guard, I heard a loud laugh, and my name pronounced, or rather roared, in the broadest accents of Germany. My friend Varnhorst was the man. The indefatigable and good-humoured Varnhorst, who did every thing, and was every where, was shaking my hand with the honest grasp of his honest nature, and congratulating me on my return.

"We have to do with a set of sharp fellow," said he, "in these French; a regiment of their light cavalry has somehow or other made its way between the columns of our infantry, and has been picking up stragglers last night. The duke, with whom you happen to have established a favouritism that would make you a chamberlain at the court of Brunswick, if you were not assassinated previously by the envy of the other chamberlains, or pinked by some lover of the "dames d'honneur," was beginning to be uneasy about you; and, as I had the peculiar good fortune of the Chevalier Marston's acquaintance, I was sent to pick him up if he had fallen in honourable combat in the plains of Champagne, or if any fragment of him were recoverable from the hands of the peasantry, to preserve it for the family mausoleum."

I anxiously enquired the news of the army, and the progress of the great operation which was then going on.

"We have beaten every thing before us for these three hours," was the answer. "The resistance in the plain was slight, for the French evidently intended to make their stand only in the forest. But the duke has pushed them strongly on the right flank; and, as you may perceive, the attack goes on in force." He pointed to the entrance of one of the defiles, where several columns were in movement, and where the smoke of the firing lay heavily above the trees. He then laid his watch on the table beside our champagne flask. "The time is come to execute another portion of my orders. What think you of following me, and seeing a little of the field."

"Nothing could delight me more. I am perfectly at your service."

"Then mount, and in five minutes I shall allow you one of the first officers in Europe, the Count Clairfait, he is a Walloon, 'tis true, and has the ill luck to be an Austrian brigadier besides, and, to finish his misfortune, has served only against the Turks. But for all that, if any man in the army now in the field is fit to succeed to the command, that man is the Count Clairfait. I only wish that he were a Prussian."

"Has he had any thing to do in this campaign?"

"Every thing that has been done. He has commanded the whole advance guard of the army; and let me whisper this in your ear—if his advice had been taken a week ago, we should by this time have been smoking our cigars in the Palais Royal."

"I am impatient to be introduced to the Comte; let us mount and ride on." He looked at his watch again.

"Not for ten minutes to come. If I made my appearance before him five minutes in advance of the time appointed by my orders, Clairfait would order me into arrest if I were his grandmother. He is the strictest disciplinarian between this and the North Pole."

"A faultless monster himself, I presume."

"Nearly so; he has but one fault—he is too fond of the sabre and bayonet. 'Charge,' is his word of command. His school was among the Turks, and he fights a la Turque."

"I should like him the better for it. That dash and daring is the very thing for success."

"Ay, ay—edge and point are good things in their way. But they are the temptations of the general. Frederick's maxim was—The bullet for the infantry, the spur for the dragoon. The weight of fire is the true test of infantry, the rapidity of charge is the true test of cavalry. The business of a general is manoeuvring—to menace masses by greater masses, to throw the weight of an army on a flank, to pierce a centre while the flanks were forced to stand and see it beaten; these were Frederick's lessons to his staff: and if Clairfait shall go on, with his perpetual hand to hand work, those sharp Frenchmen will soon learn his trade, and perhaps pay him back in his own coin. But, Halt squadron. Dress—advance in parade order."

While I was thus taking my first tuition in the art of heroes, we had rode through a deep ravine, from which, with some difficulty, we had struggled our way to a space of more level ground. Our disorder on reaching it, required all the count's ready skill to bring us into a condition fit for the eye of this formidable Austrian. But before we were complete, a group of mounted officers were seen coming from a column of glittering lances and sabres, resting on the distant verge of the plain. My friend pronounced the name of Clairfait, and I was introduced to the officer who was afterwards to play so distinguished a part in the gallant and melancholy history of the Flemish fields. I had pictured to myself the broad, plump face of the Walloon. I say a countenance, darkened probably by the sultry exposure of his southern campaigns, but of singular depth and power. It was impossible to doubt, that within the noble forehead before me, was lodged an intelligence of the first order. His manners were cold, yet not uncourteous, and to me he spoke with more than usual attention. But when he alluded to the proceedings of the day, and was informed by Varnhorst that the time appointed for his movement was come, I never saw a more rapid transition from the phlegm of the Netherlander to the vividness of the man of courage and genius. Waiting with his watch in his hand for the exact moment appointed in the brief despatch, it had no sooner arrived than the word was given, and his whole force, composed of Austrian light infantry and cavalry, moved forward. Nothing could be more regular than the march for the first half mile; but we then entered a portion of the forest, or rather its border, thinly scattered over an extent of broken country: to preserve the regularity of a movement along a high-road, soon began to be wholly impossible. The officers soon gave up the attempt in despair, and the troops enjoyed the disorder in the highest degree. The ground was so intersected with small trenches, cut by the foresters, that every half dozen yards presented a leap, and the clumps of bushes made it continually necessary to break the ranks. Wherever I looked, I now saw nothing but all the animation of an immense skirmish, the use of sabre and pistol alone excepted. Between two and three thousand cavalry, mounted on the finest horses of Austria and Turkey, galloping in all directions, some springing over the rivulets, some dashing through the thickets, all in the highest spirits, calling out to each other, laughing at each other's mishaps, their horses in as high spirits as themselves, bounding, rearing, neighing, springing like deer; trumpets sounding, standards tossing, officers commanding in tones of helpless authority, to which no one listened, and at which they themselves often laughed. The whole, like a vast school broke loose for a holiday; the most joyous, sportive, and certainly the most showy display that had ever caught my eye. The view strongly reminded me of some of the magnificent old hunting pieces by Snyders, the field sports of the Archduke Ferdinand, with the landscape and horses by Rubens and Jordaens: there we had every thing but the stag or the boar and the dogs. We had the noble trees, the rich deep glades, the sunny openings, the masses of green; and all crowded with life. But how infinitely superior in interest! No holiday sport, nor imperial pageant, but an army rushing into action; one of the great instruments of human power and human change called into energy. Thousands of bold lives about to be periled; a victory about to be achieved, which might fix the fate of Europe; or perhaps losses to be sustained which might cover the future generation with clouds; and all this is on the point of being done. No lazy interval to chill expectancy; within the day, within the hour, nay, within the next five hundred yards, the decisive moment might be come.

Still we rushed on; the staff pausing from time to time to listen to the distant cannonade, and ascertain by its faintness or loudness, the progress of the attack which had been made on the great centre and right defiles of the forest. In one of these, while I had ridden up as near as the broken ground would suffer me, towards Count Clairfait, he made a gesture to me to look upwards, and I saw, almost for the first time, a smile on his countenance. I followed the gesture, and saw, what to me was the novelty of a huge shell, leisurely as it seemed, traversing the air. The Count and his staff immediately galloped in all directions; but I had not escaped a hundred yards, when the shell dropped into the spot where I had been standing, and burst with a tremendous explosion almost immediately on its touching the ground. The cavalry had dispersed and the explosion was, I believe, without injury. But this, at least, gave evidence that the enemy were not far off, and the eagerness of the troops was excited to the highest pitch: all pressed forward to the front, and their cries, in all the languages of the frontier of Europe, the voices of the officers, and the clangour of the bugles and trumpets became an absolute Babel, but an infinitely bold and joyous one. The yagers were now ordered to clear the way, and a thousand Tyrolese and Transylvanian sharpshooters rushed forward to line the border. A heavy firing commenced, and the order was given to halt the cavalry until the effect of the fire was produced. This was speedily done; the enemy, evidently in inferior force and unprepared for this attack, gave way, and the first squadrons which reached the open ground made a dash among them, and took the greater part prisoners.

This whole day was full of splendid exhibitions. On reaching the edge of the wood, the first object below us as the succession of deep columns which I had seen some hours before, and which appeared to have been rooted to the ground ever since. But an aide-de-camp from the circle where the count stood, darted down on the plain, and, as if a flash of lightning had awoke them, all were instantly in motion. The columns on the right now made a sudden rush forward, and to my surprise, four or five strong brigades, which rapidly followed from the centre, took up their position.

Varnhorst, who had been beside me during the whole day, now exhibited great delight. "I told you," said he, "that Clairfait would turn out well. I see that he has been taught in our school. Observe that manoeuvre;" he continued his comment with increasing force of gesture—"That was the Great Frederic's favourite, the oblique formation. The finest invention in tactics, with that he gained Rosbach, and beat the French and Austrians; with that he gained the battle of Breslau; and with that he gained the grand fight of Torgau, and finished the war. Yet the king always said that he had learned the manoeuvre from Epaminondas, and was only fighting the battle of Leuctra over again. But look there!" He pointed to a rising ground, a bluff of the forest ridge, to which a battalion of sharpshooters were hastening; it had seemed destitute of defence, and the sharpshooters were already beginning to scramble up its sides; when on the instant a large body of the enemy which had been covered by the forest, rushed upon its summit with a shout, and poured down a general volley. The whole Prussian line returned it by one tremendous discharge. The drums and trumpets struck up, the battalions and squadrons advanced, singing their national hymn. The skirmishers poured forward and the battle began. How shall I speak of what I felt at that moment; the sensation was indescribable! It was mingled of all feelings but personal. I was absorbed in that glorious roar, in that bold burst of human struggle, in all that was wild, ardent, and terrible in the power of man. I had not a thought of any thing but of the martial pomp and spirit-stilling grandeur of the scene before me. I was aroused from my contemplations by the loud laugh of my veteran friend; he was trying the benefit of a large brandy flask, which I remembered, and with some not very respectful opinion of his temperance, to have seen him place in one of his holsters at our visit to the suttlers. He now offered it to me. "You look wretchedly pale," said he; "our kind of life is too rough for you gentlemen diplomats, and you will find this glass right Nantz, the very best thing, if not the only good thing, that its country has to give." This took me down from my heroics at once, the brandy was first-rate, and I found myself restored to the level of the world at once, and infinitely the better for the operation. We now followed the advance of the troops. The leading columns had already forced their way into the entrance of the forest; but it was a forest of three leagues' depth and twice the number in length, a wooded province, and the way was fought foot by foot. It is only justice to the French to say, that they fought well—held the pass boldly—often charged our advance, and gave way only when they were on the point of being surrounded. But our superiority of discipline and numbers combined, did not suffer the success to be for a moment doubtful. Still, as we followed, the battle raged in the depths of the forest, already as dark as if night had come on—our only light the incessant illumination of the musketry, and the bursts of fire from the howitzers and guns.

As we were standing on the last height at the entrance of the defile, "Look round," exclaimed Varnhorst, "and take your first lesson in our art, if you ever adopt the trade of soldiership. The Duke has outwitted the Frenchman. I suspected something of this sort in the morning, when I first heard his guns so far to the right. I allow that the enemy may be puzzled for a while who has five passes to defend, with half a dozen leagues between them, and a Prussian army in front ready to make him choose. He has evidently drawn off the strength of his troops to the Duke's point of attack, and has stripped the wing before us. Clairfait's mass has been thrown upon it, and the day is our own. Onward."

The roads and the surrounding glades gave fearful evidence of the obstinacy of the struggle; but it also gave some curious evidence of the force of habit in making light of the troubles of life. The cavalry, which had been comparatively unemployed, from the nature of the service during the day, had taken advantage of the opportunity to consult their own comfort as much as possible. On the flank and rear of the infantry the troopers had taken the whole affair en amateur, and had lit their campfires, cooked their rations, handsomely augmented by the general spoliation of the hen-coops within many a league. Something like a fair was established round them by the suttlers; while the shells were actually falling and many a branch was shattered over their banquets by the shot which constantly whizzed through the trees. But, "Vive la fortune!" Even the sober Teuton and the rough son of the Bannat could enjoy the few moments that war gives to festivity, and what the next night or morning might bring was not suffered to disturb their sense of "schnapps," and their supper.

The trampling of horses in our rear, and the galloping of the chasseurs of the ducal escort, now told us that the generalissimo was at hand. He rode up in high spirits, received our congratulations with princely courtesy, and bestowed praises on the troops, and especially on Clairfait, which made the count's dark features absolutely glow. The whole group rode together until we reached the open country. A decisive success had unquestionably been gained; and in war the first success is of proverbial importance. On this point, the duke laid peculiar weight on the few words which he could spare to me.

"M. Marston," he observed, taking me cordially by the hand, "we are henceforth more than friends, we are camarades. We have been in the field together; and, with us Prussians, that is a tie for life."

I made my acknowledgments for his highness's condescension. Business then took the lead.

"You will now have a good despatch to transmit to our friends in England. The Count Clairfait has shown himself worthy of his reputation. I understand that the enemy's force consisted chiefly of the household troops of France; if so, we have beaten the best soldiers of the kingdom, and the rest can give us but little trouble. You will remark upon these points; and now for Paris."

A cry, or rather a shout of assent from the circle of officers, echoed the words, and we all put spurs to our horses, and followed the cortege through the noble old groves. But before we reached its confines, the firing had wholly ceased, and the enemy were hurrying down the slope of the Argonne, and crossing in great disorder a plain which separated them from their main body. Our light troops and cavalry were dashing in pursuit, and prisoners were continually taken. From the spot where we halted, the light of the sinking day showed us the rapid breaking up of the fugitive column, the guns, one by one, left behind; the muskets thrown away; and the soldiers scattered, until our telescopes could discover scarcely more than a remnant reaching the protection of the distant hill.

We supped that night on the green sward. The duke had invited his own staff, and that of Clairfait, to his tent, in honour of the day, and I never spent a gayer evening. His incomparable finish of manners, mingled with the cordiality which no man could more naturally assume when it was his pleasure, and his mixture of courtly pleasantry with the bold humour which campaigning, in some degree, teaches to every one, made him, if possible, more delightful, to my conception, than even in our first interview. Towards the close of the supper, which, like every thing else round him, was worthy of Sardanapalus, he addressed himself to me, and giving a most gracious personal opinion of what my "services had merited from the English minister," said that, "limited as his own means of rewarding zeal and ability might be, he begged of me to retain a slight memorial of his friendship, and of our day together on the heights of Argonne." Taking from the hand of Guiscard the riband and star of the "Order of Merit," the famous order instituted by the Great Frederic, he placed it round my neck, and proposed my health to the table as a "Knight of Prussia."

This was a flattering distinction, and, if I could have had entire faith in all the complimentary language addressed to me by the sitters at that stately table, I should have had visions of very magnificent things. But there is no antidote to vanity equal to an empty purse. If I had been born to one of the leviathan fortunes of our peerage, I might possibly have imagined myself possessed of all the talents of mankind, and with all its distinctions waiting for my acceptance; but I never could forget the grave lesson that I was a younger son. I sat, like the Roman in his triumph, with the slave, to lecture him, behind. However, I had a more ample evidence of the sincerity with which those compliments were paid, in the higher degree of trust reposed in me from day to day.

After the repast was ended, and the principal part of the guests had withdrawn, I was desired to wait for the communication of important intelligence—Guiscard and Varnhorst being the only officers of the staff who remained. A variety of papers, taken in the portfolio of one of the French generals who had fallen in the engagement of the day, were laid before us, and our little council proceeded to examine them. They were of a very various kind, and no bad epitome of the mind of a gallant and crackbrained coxcomb. Reflections on the conduct of the Allied armies, and conjectures on their future proceedings—both of so fantastic a kind, that the duke's gravity often gave way, and even the grim Guiscard sometimes wore a smile. Then came in a letter from some "confrere" in Paris, a tissue of gossip and grumbling, anecdotes of the irregularities of private life, and merciless abuse of the leaders of party. Interspersed with those were epistles of a more tender description; from which it appeared that the general's heart was as capacious as his ambition, and that he contrived to give his admiration to half a dozen of the elite of Parisian beauty at a time. Varnhorst was delighted with this portion of the correspondence; even the presence of the duke could not prevent him from bursting into explosions of laughter; and he ended by imploring possession of the whole, as models of his future correspondence, in any emergency which compelled him to put pen to paper in matters of the sex. But nearly the last of the documents in the portfolio was one deserving of all attention. It was a statement of the measures which had been enjoined by the Republican government for raising the population in arms; and, as an appendix, the muster-roll of the various corps which were already on their way to join the army of Dumourier. The duke read this paper with a countenance from which all gaiety had vanished and handed it to Guiscard to read aloud.

"What think you of that, gentlemen?" asked the duke, in his most deliberate tone.

Varnhorst, in his usual unhesitating style, said—"It tells us only that we shall have some more fighting; but, as we are sure to beat them, the more the better. Your highness knows as well as any man alive, that the maxim of our great master was, 'Begin the war by fighting as many pitched battles as you can. Skirmishes teach discipline to the rabble; allow the higher orders time to escape, the government to tamper, and to encourage the resistance of all. Pitched battles are thunderbolts; they finish the business at once; and, like the thunderbolts, they appear to come from a source which defies resistance by man.'"

"I think," said Guiscard, with his deep physiognomy still darkening, "that we lost, what is the most difficult of all things to recover—time."

The duke bit his lip. "How was it to be helped, Guiscard? You know the causes of the delay; they were many and stubborn."

"Ay," was the reply, with an animation, which struck me with surprise, "as many as the blockheads in Berlin, and as stubborn as the rock under our feet, or the Aulic council."

"Well," said the duke, turning to me, with his customary grace of manner—"What does our friend, the Englishman, say?"

Of course, I made no pretence to giving a military opinion. I merely said, "That I had every reliance on the experienced conduct of his highness, and on the established bravery of his army."

"The truth is, M. Marston, as Guiscard says, we have lost time, though it is no fault of ours, and I observe, from these papers, that the enemy availed themselves of the delay, by bringing up strong corps from every point. Still, our duty lies plain before us; we must advance, and rescue the unfortunate royal family—we must tranquillize France, by overthrowing the rabble influence, which now threatens to subvert all law; and having done that, we may then retire, with the satisfaction of having fought without ambition, and been victorious without a wish for aggrandizement." After a pause, which none attempted to interrupt, he finished by saying—"I admit that our work is likely to become more difficult than I had supposed."

Varnhorst's sanguine nature bore this with visible reluctance. "Pardon me, your highness, but my opinion is for instant action, whatever may happen. Let us but move to-morrow morning, and I promise you another battle of Rosbach within the next twelve hours." The idea was congenial to the gallantry of the duke; he smiled, and shook the bold speaker by the hand.

"I see, by these lists," said Guiscard, as he slowly perused the returns, "that the troops with which we have been engaged to-day amounted to little more than twenty thousand men, under the new general, Dumourier. They fought badly, I think. I scarcely expected that they would have fought at all since the emigration of their officers. Sixteen or eighteen thousand men are already moving up from Flanders; a strong corps under my old acquaintance and countryman, Kellerman—and whatever he may be as an officer, a bolder and braver veteran does not exist—are coming, by forced marches, from the Rhine; the sea-coast towns are stripped of their garrisons, to supply a supplementary force; and I should not be surprised to find that we rather under, than over, calculated the force which will be in line against us within a week.

"So be it!" exclaimed Varnhorst, "What are troops without discipline, and generals without science? Both made to be beaten. The fifty thousand Prussians with us would march through Europe. I am for the advance. That was a brilliant dash of Clairfait's this afternoon. Let us match it to-morrow morning."

"It was admirable!" replied the duke, with the colour mounting to his cheek. "Any officer in Europe might envy the decision, the daring, and the success. His sagacity in discovering the weak point of the enemy's position, and his skill in its attack, deserve all praise. His flank movement was perfectly admirable."

"Well, we have only to try him again," exclaimed Varnhorst, with increasing animation. "We have turned the position, and taken a thousand prisoners and some guns. Our men are in high spirits; and, if I were in command of a corps to-morrow, my only countersign would be—'Paris.'"

"Varnhorst," said the duke, "you have only anticipated my intention with regard to yourself. You shall have a command; the three brigades of Prussian grenadiers shall be given into your charge, and you shall operate on the flank. It is my wish to make our principal movement in that direction, and I know you well."

Varnhorst's gratitude almost denied him words; but his countenance spoke better than his tongue.

One of those papers contained a detail of several projects by the leading members of the Assembly for the government of France. Guiscard, after bending his wise head over them, pronounced them all equally futile, and equally tending to democracy. The duke was of the opposite opinion, and after a glance at the papers, observed—"that he thought some of those schemes ingenious; but that they so closely resembled the ideas thrown out in Germany, under the patronage of the Emperor Joseph, as to deprive them of any strong claim to originality." "No," said he gaily, "I shall never believe that Frenchmen are changed, until I hear that there is no ballet in Paris; you might as well tell me, that the Swiss will abjure the money which makes a part of his distinction, as the Frenchman give up the laced coat, the powdered queue, and the order of St Louis at his buttonhole. Those things are the man, they are his mind, his senses, himself. He is a creation of monarchy—a clever, amusing, ingenious, and brave one; but rely upon my knowledge of human nature—if French nature be any thing of the kind—that Paris, a capital without balls, and a government without embroidery, will disgust him beyond all forgiveness. It is my opinion, that if democracy were formed to-morrow, it would be danced away in a week; or if every pedigree in France were burned in this evening's fire, you would have the Boulevards crowded with marquises and marchionesses before the month was over. Is my friend un peu philosophe?" He laughed at his own picture of a revolution, and his pleasantry of manner would have made his sentiments popular on any subject. Still, our long-headed friend, Guiscard, was not to be convinced.

"I may have every contempt," said he, in a hurried tone, "for the shallowness of idlers and talkers attempting to mould men by theories; but the question whether France is to remain a monarchy or not, is one of the most pressing importance to your highness's operations. It is only in this practical sense that I should think of the topic at all. You have taken the frontier towns, and have beaten the frontier army. Thus, so far as the regular force of France is concerned, the war is at an end. But then comes the grand point. A country of thirty millions of people cannot be conquered, if they can but be roused to resist. All the troops of Europe—nay, perhaps all the princes of the earth—might perish before they fully conquered a country so large as France, with so powerful a population. This seems even to be one of the provisions of Providence against ambition, that an invasion of a populous country is the most difficult operation in the world, unless the people welcome the invader. It gives every ditch the character of a fortress, and every man the spirit of a soldier. I recollect no instance in European history, where an established kingdom was conquered by invasion. They all stand at this hour, as they stood a thousand years ago. In France, we found the people without leaders, without troops, and without experience in war; of course they have not resisted our hussars and guns. But they have not joined us. In any other country of Europe, we should have recruits crowding to ask for service. But the French farmer shuts up his house; the peasant flies; the citizen barricades his gates, and gives a cannon-shot for an answer. The whole land rejects us, if it dares not repel; and, if we conquer, we shall have to colonize."

"Well, we must fight them into it," said Varnhorst.

"Or leave them to fight themselves out of it," I observed—"my national prejudices not being favourable to reasoning at the point of the bayonet."

"Or take the chances of the world, and float on wherever the surge carries us," laughed the duke.

But Guiscard was still inflexible. His deep eye flashed with a light which I never could have looked for under those projecting brows. His cheek was visited by a tinge which argued a passionate interest in the subject; and, as he spoke, his tongue uttered a nervous and powerful eloquence, which showed that Guiscard was thrown among camps, while he might have figured in senates and councils. Of course, at this distance of time, I can offer but a faint memory of his bold and spontaneous wisdom.

"I can see no result for France but democracy. This war is like no other since the fall of the Roman Empire. It is a war of the passions. What man can calculate the power of those untried elements? I implore your highness to consider with the deepest caution every step to be taken from this moment. Europe has no other commander whom it can place in a rank with yourself; and if you, at the head of the first army of Europe, shall find it necessary to retreat before the peasantry of France, it will form a disastrous era in the art of war, and a still more disastrous omen to every crowned head of Europe."

The duke looked uneasy. But he merely said with a smile—"My dear Guiscard, we must keep these sentiments to ourselves in camp. You are a cosmopolite, and look on these things with too refined a speculation. Like myself, you have dined and supped with the Diderots and Raynals—pleasant people, no doubt, but dangerous advisers."

"I have!" exclaimed his excited hearer; "and neither I, nor any other man, would have met them without admiring their talents. But I always looked on their coterie as a sort of moral lunatics, the madder the more light they have."

"Our question is simply one of fact," said the duke.

"Yes, and of a fact on which the fate of Europe hinges at this moment! The monarchy of France is already cloven down. What wild shape of power is now to take up its fallen sword? The sovereignty of time, laws, and loyalty are in the grave, and the funeral rites will be bloody; but what hand is to make the ground of that grave firm enough to bear the foundations of a new throne?

"The heels of our boots and the hoofs of our horses will trample it solid enough!" exclaimed Varnhorst.

"The much stronger probability is," replied Guiscard, "that they will trample it into a mire so deep, that we may reckon the Allied powers fortunate if they can draw themselves out of it. France is revolutionized irrecoverably. Three things have been done within the last three months, any one of which would overthrow the strongest government on the Continent. By confiscating the property of the nobles, she has set the precedent for breaking down all property, thrown the prize into the hands of the populace, and thus, after corrupting them by the robbery, has bound them by the bribe. By destroying and banishing the persons of the nobility, she has done more than extinguish an antagonist to the mob—she has swept away a protector of the people. The provinces will henceforth be helpless; Paris will be the sovereign, and Paris itself will have the mob for its master. And by her third step, the ruin of the church, she has given the death-blow to the few and feeble feelings which acknowledged higher objects than those of the hour. The pressing point for us, is, how the Revolution will act upon the military spirit of the nation. The French nay succumb; but they make good soldiers, they are the only nation in Europe who have an actual fondness for war, who contemplate it as a pastime, and, in spite of all their defeats, regard it as their natural path to power."

"But they fly before our squadrons," observed the duke.

"Yes, as schoolboys fly before their master, until they are strong enough to rebel; or as the Indians fled before the lances and horses of Cortes, until they became accustomed to them. It would be infinitely wiser to leave the republicans to struggle with each other, than unite them by a national attack. Mobs, like the wolves, always fall upon the first wounded. The first faction that receives a blow in those campaigns of the Palais Royal, will have all the others tearing it to fragments. The custom will spread; every new drop of blood will let loose a torrent in retaliation; and when France has thus been drained of her fever, will be the time, either to restore her, or to paralyse for ever her power of disturbing the world."

The sound of a gun from either flank of the army, reminded us that the hour of the evening hymn had come. It broke up our council. The incomparable harmony of so many thousand voices ascended into the air; and at the discharge of another gun, all was still once more. The night had now fallen, and the fatigues of the day made repose welcome. But the conversation of the last hour made me anxious to obtain all the knowledge of the actual state of the country, and the prospects of the campaign, which could be obtained from Guiscard. Varnhorst, full of a soldier's impetuosity, was gone to the quarters of his grenadiers, and was busy with hurried preparations for the morrow. The duke had retired, and, through the curtains of his tent, I could see the lamps by whose light his secretaries were in attendance, and with whom he would probably pass the greater part of the next twelve hours. With Guiscard I continued pacing up and down in front of our quarters, listening to the observations of a mind as richly stored, and as original, as I have ever met. He still persisted in his conviction, "that we had come at the wrong time, either too early or too late; before the nation had grown weary of anarchy, and after they had triumphed over the throne. "The rebound," said he energetically, "will be terrible. Ten times our force would be thrown away in this war. The army may drive all things before its front; but it will be assailed in the rear, in the flanks—every where. It is like the lava which I have seen pour down from Etna into the sea. It drove the tide before it, and threw the water up in vapour; but they were too powerful for it after all. And there stands the lava fixed and cold, and there roll the surges once again, burying it from the sight of man."

A sudden harmony of trumpets, from various points of the vast encampment, pierced the ear, and in another moment the whole line of the hills was crowned with flame. The signal for lighting the fires of the Austrian and Prussian outposts had been given, and the effect was almost magical. In this army all things were done with a regularity almost perfect. The trumpet spoke, and the answer was instantaneous. All comparisons are feeble to realities of this order—seen, too, while the heart of man is quickened to enjoy and wonder, and feels scarcely less than a new existence in the stirring events every where round him. The first comparison that struck me was the vague one of a shower of stars. The mountain pinnacles were in a blaze. The general fires of the bivouacs soon spread through the forest, and down the slopes of the hills, all round to the horizon.

The night was fine, the air flowed refreshingly from the verdure of the immense woods, and the scent of the thyme and flowers of the heath, pressed by my foot, rose "wooingly on the air." All was calm and odorous. The flourish of the evening trumpets still continued to swell in the rich harmonies which German skill alone can breathe, and thoughts of the past and the future began to steal over my mind. I was once more in England, gazing on the splendid beauty of Clotilde; and imagining the thousand forms in which my weary fortunes must be shaped, before I dared offer her a share in my hopes of happiness. I saw Mariamne once more, with her smile reminding me of Shakspeare's exquisite picture—

"Oh, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful, In the contempt and anger of that lip!"

Then came a vision of my early home. The halls of Mortimer castle—the feebly surviving parent there, whom I still loved—the heartless and haughty brother—the pomp and pageantry to which he was born; while I was flung out into the wilderness, like the son of the handmaid, to perish, or, like him, escape only by a miracle. At that hour, perhaps, there were revels in the house of my fathers, while their descendant was wandering on a hill-side, in the midst of hostile armies, exposed to the chances of the conflict, and possibly only measuring with his pace the extent of his grave. But while I was thus sinking in heart, my hand, in making some unconscious gesture, struck the badge of Frederic's order on my bosom. What trifles change the current of human thoughts! That star threw more light over my darkness than the thousand constellations that studded the vault above my head. Success, honours, and public name, filled my mind. I saw all things, events, and persons through a brilliant haze of hope; and determining to follow fortune wherever she might lead me, abjured all thoughts of calamity in my unfriended, yet resolute career. Is it to consider the matter too curiously, to conceive that the laws of nature affect the mind? or that the spirit of man resembles an instrument, after all—an Aeolian harp, which owes all its pulses to the gusts that pass across its strings, and in which it simply depends upon the stronger or the feebler breeze, whether it shall smile with joyous and triumphant chords, or sink into throbs and sounds of sorrow?

The galloping of horses roused me. It was Guiscard with an escort. "What! not in your bed yet?" was his hurried salutation. "So much the better; you will have a showy despatch to send to England to-night. Clairfait has just outdone himself. He found that the French were retreating, and he followed them without loss of time. His troops had been so dispersed by the service of the day, that he could collect but fifteen hundred hussars; and with these he gallantly set forth to pick up stragglers. His old acquaintance, Chazot, whom he had beaten the day before, was in command of a rearguard of ten thousand men. His fifteen hundred brave fellows were now exposed to ruin; and doubtless, if they had exhibited any show of retreating, they must have been ruined. But here Clairfait's a la Turque style was exactly in place. He ordered that not a shot should be fired, but that the spur and sabre should do the business; and at once plunged into the mass of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. In five minutes the whole were put to the rout—guns, baggage, and ammunition taken; and the French general-in-chief as much stripped of his rearguard, as ever a peacock was plucked of his tail."

"Will the duke follow up the blow?" was my enquiry.

"Beyond doubt. I have just left him giving orders for the advancement of the whole line at daybreak; and unless M. Dumouier is remarkably on the alert, we shall have him supping in the camp within the next twenty-four hours. But you will have better intelligence from himself; for he bade me prepare you for meeting him, as he rides to the wing from which the march begins."

"Excellent news! You and Varnhorst will be field-marshals before the campaign is over." His countenance changed.

"No; my course unfortunately lies in a different direction. The duke has been so perplexed, by the delays continually forced upon him by the diplomacy of the Allied cabinets, that he has been more than once on the point of giving up the command. Clairfait's success, and the prospect of cutting off the retreat of the French, or of getting between them and Paris, have furnished him with new materials; and I am now on my way to Berlin, to put matters in the proper point of view. Farewell, Marston, I am sorry to lose you as a comrade; but we must meet again—no laurels for me now. The duke must not find me here; he will pass by within the next five minutes."

The noble fellow sprang from his horse, and shook my hand with a fervour which I had not thought to be in his grave and lofty nature.

"Farewell!" he uttered once more, and threw himself on his saddle, and was gone.

I had scarcely lost the sound of his horse's hoofs, as they rattled up the stony ravine of the hill, when the sound of a strong body of cavalry announced the approach of the generalissimo. He soon rode up, and addressed me with his usual courtesy. "I really am afraid, Mr Marston, that you will think me in a conspiracy to prevent your enjoying a night's rest, for all our meetings, I think, have been at the 'witching hour!' But would you think it too much to mount your horse now, and ride with me, before you send your despatches to your cabinet? I must visit the troops of the left wing without delay; we can converse on the way."

I was all obedience, a knight of Prussia, and therefore at his highness's service.

"Well, well, I thought so. You English gentlemen are ready for every thing. In the mean time, while your horse is saddling, look over this letter. That was a gallant attempt of Clairfait's, and, if we had not been too far off to support him, we might have pounced upon the main body as effectually as he did upon the rear. Chazot has escaped, but one of M. Dumourier's aides-de-camp, a remarkably intelligent fellow, has been taken, and on him has been found the papers which I beg you to peruse."

It was a letter from the commander-in-chief to the Bureau de la Guerre in Paris.

"MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE,—I write this, after having been on horseback for eighteen hours. We must have reinforcements without a moment's delay, or we are lost—the honour of France is lost—France herself is lost. I have with me less than 20,000 men to defend the road to Paris against 100,000. The truth must be told—truth becomes a citizen. We have been beaten! I have been unable to hold the passes of Argonne, and the enemy's hussars are already scouring the country in my rear. I have sent order upon order to Kellerman, and all my answer is, that he is preparing to advance; but he has not stirred a step. I daresay, that he is playing trictrac at Metz this moment.

"My march from the Argonne has been a bold manoeuvre, but it has cost us something. Chazot, to whom I entrusted the protection of the march, and to whom I had given the strictest orders to keep the enemy's light troops at a distance, has suffered himself to be entrapped by those experienced campaigners, and has lost men. Duval fought bravely at the head of his brigade, and Miranda narrowly escaped being taken, in a dashing attempt to save the park of artillery. He had a horse killed under him, and was taken from the field insensible. Macdonald, who takes this, will explain more. He is a promising officer—give him a step. In the mean time, send me every man that you can. France is in danger."

"The object now," observed the duke, "will be, to press upon the enemy in his present state of disorder, until we shall either be enabled to force him to fight a pitched battle at a disadvantage, or strike in between him and the capital. And now forward!"

I mounted, and we rode through the camp—the duke occasionally giving some order for the morning to the officers commanding the successive divisions, and conversing with me on the points in discussion between England and the Allies. He was evidently dissatisfied with continental politics.

"The king and the emperor are both sincere; but that is more than I can always say for those about them. We have too many Italians, and even Frenchmen, at our German courts. They are republicans to a man; and, by consequence, every important measure is betrayed. I can perceive, in the manoeuvres of the enemy's general, that he must have been acquainted with my last despatch from Berlin; and, I am so thoroughly persuaded of the fact, that I mean to manoeuvre to-morrow on that conviction. The order from Berlin is, that I shall act upon his flanks. Within two hours after daylight I shall make a push for his centre; and, breaking through that, shall separate his wings, and crush them at my leisure. One would think," said he, pausing, and looking round him with the exaltation of conscious power, "that the troops had overheard us, and already anticipated a victory."

The sight from the knoll, where we drew our bridles, was certainly of the most striking kind. The fires, which at first I had seen glittering only on the mountain tops, were now blazing in all quarters; in the cleared spaces of the forest, on the heaths and in the ravines: the heaps of fagots gathered for the winter consumption of the cities, by woodmen of the district, were put in requisition, and the axes of the pioneers laid many a huge larch and elm on the blaze. Soldiers seldom think much of those who are to come after them; and the flames shot up among the thickets with the most unsparing brilliancy. Cheerfulness, too, prevailed; the sounds of laughter, and gay voices, and songs, arose on every side. The well-preserved game of this huge hunting-ground, the old vexation of the French peasant, now fell into hands which had no fear of the galleys for a shot at a wild boar, or bringing down a partridge. The fires exhibited many a substantial specimen of forest luxury in the act of preparation. No man enjoys rest and food like the soldier. A day's fighting and fasting gives a sense of delight to both, such as the man of cities can scarcely conceive. No epicure at his most recherche board ever knew the true pleasure of the senses, equal to the campaigner stretched upon the grass, until his supper was ready, and then sitting down to it. I acknowledge, that to me that simple rest, and that simple meal, often gave a sense of enjoyment which I have never even conceived in the luxuries of higher life. The instantaneous sleep that followed; the night without a restless moment; the awaking with all my powers refreshed, and yet with as complete an unconsciousness of the hours past away, as if I had lain down but the moment before, and started from night into sunshine—all belong to the campaigner: he has his troubles, but his enjoyments are his own, exclusive, delicious, incomparable.

An officer of the staff now rode up to make a report on some movement of the division intended to lead in the morning, and the duke gave me permission to retire. He galloped off in the direction of the column, and I slowly pursued my way to my quarters. Yet I could not resist many a halt, to gaze on the singular beauty of the bursts of flame which lighted the landscape. More than once, it reminded me of the famous Homeric description of the Trojan bivouac by the ships. All the images were the same, except that, for the sea, we had the endless meadows of Champagne, and, for the ships, the remote tents of the enemy. We had the fire, the exulting troops, the carouse, the picketed horses, the shouts and songs, the lustre of the autumnal sky, and the bold longings for victory and the dawn. Even in Pope's feeble translation, the scene is animated—

"The troops exulting sate in order round, And beaming fires illumined all the ground."

Then follows the famous simile of the moon, suddenly throwing its radiance over the obscure features of the landscape.

But Homer, the poet of realities, soon returns to the true material—

"So many flames before proud Ilion blaze, And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays, A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild, And shoot a shadowy lustre o'er the field. Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend, Whose umber'd arms by fits thick flashes send; Loud neigh the coursers o'er their heaps of corn, And ardent warriors wait the rising morn."

I leave it to others to give the history of this campaign, one of the most memorable of Europe from its consequences—the tramp of that army roused the slumbering giant of France. If the Frenchman said of a battle, that it was like a ball-room, you see little beyond your opposite partner; he might have said of a campaign, that you scarcely see even so much. The largeness of the scale is beyond all personal observation. I can answer only for myself, that I was on horseback before daybreak, and marched in the midst of columns which had no more doubt of beating up the enemy's quarters than they had of eating their first meal. All were in the highest spirits; and the opinions of the staff, among whom the duke had assigned me a place, were so sanguine, that I felt some concern at their reaching the ear of the captive aide-de-camp. This induced me to draw him away gradually from the crowd. I found him lively, as his countrymen generally are, but exhibiting at once a strength of observation and a frankness of language which are more uncommon.

"I admit," said he, "that you have beaten us; but this is the natural effect of your incomparable discipline. Our army is new, our general new, every thing new but our imprudence, in venturing to meet your 100,000 with our 25,000. Yet France is not beaten. In fact, you have not met the French up to this hour."

"What!" I exclaimed in surprise; "of what nation are the troops which we have fought in the Argonne, and are now following through the high-road to Paris? The Duke of Brunswick will be amused by hearing that he has been wasting his cannon-shot on spectres."

"Ah, you English," he replied with a broad laugh, which made me still more doubt his nation, "are such matter-of-fact people, that you require substance in every thing. But what are the troops of France? Brave fellows enough, but not one of them has ever seen a shot fired in his life; even the few battalions which we had in America saw nothing but hedge-firing. The men before you have never seen more service than they could find in a cabaret, or hunting a highwayman. Some of them, I admit, have served their King in the shape of shouldering their muskets at his palace gates in Versailles, or marching in a procession of cardinals and confessors to Notre-Dame. My astonishment is, that at the first shot they did not all run to their soup, and at the second leave their muskets to take care of themselves. But they are brave; and, if they once learn to fight, the pupils will beat the master."

"You are a philosopher, Monsieur, but, I hope, no prophet. I think I observe in you something of our English blood after all. You have opinions, and speak them."

"Not quite English, nor quite French. My father was a borderer; so not even exactly either English or Scotch. He took up arms for the son of James—of course was ruined, as every one was who had to do with Stuart from the beginning of time—luckily escaped after the crash of Culloden, entered the Scottish Brigade here, and left to me nothing but his memory, his sword, and the untarnished name of Macdonald." I bowed to a name so connected with honour, and the lively aide-de-camp and I became from that moment, fast friends. After a long and fatiguing march, about noon, in one of the most sultry days of a British autumn, our advanced guard reached the front of the enemy's position. The outposts were driven in at once, and the whole army, as it came up, was formed in order of battle. Rumours had been spread of large reinforcements being on their way; and the clouds of dust which rose along the plain, and the confused sound of baggage-wagons, and heavy guns behind the hills, rendered it probable. Still the country before us was clear to the eye, and our whole force moved slowly forward to storm a range of heights, in the shape of a half-moon, which commanded the field. This was one of the sights which nothing but war can furnish, and to which no other sight on earth is equal. The motion, the shouts, the rapidity of all things—the galloping of the cavalry—the rolling of the parks of artillery—the rush of the light troops—the pressing march of the battalions—and all glittering with all the pomps of war, waving standards, flashing sabres, and the blaze thrown back from the columns' bayonets, that looked like sheets of steel, made me almost breathless. The aide-de-camp evidently enjoyed the sight as much as myself, and gave way to that instinct, by which man is a wolf, let the wise say what they will, and exults in war. But when he heard shots fired from the range of hills, his countenance changed.

"There must be some mistake here," he said, with sudden gravity. "Dumourier could never have intended to hold his position so far in advance, and so wholly unprotected. Those troops will be lost, and the whole campaign may be compromised."

The attack now commenced along the line, and the resistance was evidently serious. A heavy fire was sustained for some time; but the troops gradually established themselves on the lower part of the range. "I know it all now!" exclaimed my agitated companion, after a long look through my glass: "it is Kellerman's corps," said he, "which ought to have been a league to the rear of its present position at this moment. He must have received counter orders since I left him, or been desperately deceived; another half hour there, and he will never leave those hills but a prisoner or a corpse." From the shaking of his bridle, and the nervous quivering of his manly countenance, I saw how eagerly he would have received permission to bring the French general out of his dilemma. But he was a man of honour, and I was sure of him. In the midst of a thunder of cannon, which absolutely seemed to shake the ground under our feet, the firing suddenly ceased on the enemy's side. The cessation was followed on ours; there was an extraordinary silence over the field, and probably the generalissimo expected a flag of truce, or some proposal for the capitulation of the enemy's corps. But none came; and after a pause, in which aides-de-camp and orderlies were continually galloping between the advance and the spot where the duke stood at the head of his staff, the line moved again, and the hill was in our possession. But Kellerman was gone; and before our light troops could make any impression on the squadrons which covered the movement, he had again taken up a position on the formidable ground which was destined to figure so memorably in the annals of French soldiership, the heights of Valmy.

"What think you now, my friend?" was my question.

"Just what I thought before," was the answer. "We want science, without which bravery may fail; but we have bravery, without which science must fail. Kellerman may have been deceived in his first position, but he has evidently retrieved his error. He has now shortened his distance from his reinforcements, he has secured one of the most powerful positions in the country, and unless yon drive him out of it before nightfall, you might as well storm Ehrenbreitstein, or your own Gibraltar, by morning."

"Well, the experiment is about to be made, for my glass shows me our howitzers en masse, moving up to cannonade him with grape and canister. He will have an uneasy bivouac of it."

"Whether Kellerman can manoeuvre, I do not know. But that he will fight, I am perfectly sure. He is old, but one of the most daring and firm officers in our service. If it is in his orders to maintain those heights, he will hold them to his last cartridge and his last man."

Our conversation was now lost in the roar of artillery, and after a tremendous fire of an hour on the French position, which was answered with equal weight from the heights, a powerful division was sent to assail the principal battery. The attempt was gallantly made, and the success seemed infallible, when I heard, through all the roar, the exclamation of Macdonald, "Brave Steingell!" At the words, he pointed to a heavy column of infantry hurrying down the ravine in rear of the redoubt.

"Those are from the camp," he exclaimed, "and a few thousands more will make the post impregnable."

The sight of the column seemed to have given renewed vigour to both sides; for, while the French guns rapidly increased their fire, aided by the musketry of the newly arrived troops, the Prussian artillerists, then the first in Europe, threw in their balls in such showers, that the forest, which hitherto had largely screened the enemy, began to fall in masses; branch and trunk were swept away, and the ground became as naked of cover as if it had been stripped by the axe. The troops thus exposed could not withstand this "iron hail," and they were palpably staggered. The retreat of a brigade, after suffering immense loss, shook the whole line, and produced a charge of our dragoons up the hill. I gave an involuntary glance at Macdonald. He was pale and exhausted; but in another moment his eye sparkled, his colour came, and I heard him exclaim, "Bravo, Chazot! All is not lost yet." I saw a group of mounted officers galloping into the very spot which had been abandoned by the brigade, and followed by the colours of three or four battalions, which were planted directly under our fire. "There comes Chazot with his division!" cried the aide-de-camp; "gallant fellow, let him now make up for his ill fortune! Monsieur Brunswick will not sleep on the hill of Valmy to-night. He has been unable to force the centre, and now both flanks are secured: another attack would cost him ten thousand men. Nor will Monsieur Brunswick sleep on the hills of Valmy to-morrow. Dumourier was right; there was his Thermopylae. But it will not be stormed. Vive la France!"

The prediction was nearly true. The unexpected reinforcements, and the approach of night, determined the generalissimo to abandon the assault for the time. The fire soon slackened, the troops were withdrawn, and, after a heavy loss on both sides, both slept upon the field.

I was roused at midnight from the deep sleep of fatigue, by an order to attend the duke, who was then holding a council. Varnhorst was my summoner, and on our way he slightly explained the purpose of his mission. "We are all in rather bad spirits at the result of to-day's action. The affair itself was not much, as it was only between detachments, but it shows two things; that the French are true to their revolutionary nonsense, and that they can fight. On even ground we have beaten them, and shall beat them again; but if Champagne gives them cover, what will it be when we get into the broken country that lies between this and Paris? Still there has been no rising of the people, and until then, we have nothing to fear for the event of the campaign."

"What then have you to fear?" was my question. "What calls the council to-night?"

"My good friend," said Varnhorst with a grave smile, which more reminded me of Guiscard, "remember the Arab apologue, that every man is born with two strings tied to him, one large and visible, but made of twisted feathers; the other so fine as to be invisible, but made of twisted steel. Thus there are few men without a visible motive, which all can see, and an invisible one—which, however, pulls then just as the puller pleases. Berlin pulls now, and the duke's glory and the good of Europe must be sacrificed to policy."

"But will the king suffer this? Will the emperor stand by and see this done?"

"They are both zealous for the liberation of the unfortunate royal family. But, entre nous—and this is a secret which I scarcely dare whisper even in a French desert—their counsellors have other ideas. Poland is the prize to which the ministers of both courts look. They know that the permanent possession of French provinces is impossible. It is against the will of your great country, against the deepest request of the French king, and against their own declarations. But Polish seizures would give them provinces to which nobody has laid claim, and which nobody can envy. The consequence is, that a negotiation is on foot at this moment to conclude the war by treaty, and, having ensured the safety of the royal family, to withdraw the army into Lorraine."

"Why am I then summoned?"

"To put your signature to the preliminaries."

I started with indignation. "They shall wait long enough if they wait till I sign them. I shall not attend this council."

"Observe," said Varnhorst, "I have spoken only on conjecture. If I return without you, my candour will be rewarded by an instant sentence for Spandau."

This decided me. I shook my gallant friend by the hand, the cloud passed from his brow, and we rode together to the council. This was of a more formal nature than I had yet witnessed. Two officers expressly sent from Vienna and Berlin, a kind of military envoys, had brought the decisions of their respective cabinets upon the crisis. The duke said little. He had lost his gay nonchalance of manners, and was palpably dispirited and disappointed. His address to me was gracious as ever; but he was more of the prince and the diplomatist, and less of the soldier. Our sitting closed with a resolution, to agree upon an armistice, and to make the immediate release of the king one of the stipulations. I combated the proposal as long as I could with decorum. I placed, in the strongest light that I could, the immense impulse which any pause in our advance must give to the revolutionary spirit in France, or even in Europe—the impossibility of relying on any negotiation which depended on the will of the rabble—and, above all, the certainty that the first sign of tardiness on the part of the Allies would overthrow the monarchy, which was now kept in existence only by the dread of our arms. I was overruled. The proposal for the armistice was signed by all present but one—that one myself. And as we broke up silently and sullenly, at the first glimpse of a cold and stormy dawn, the fit omen of our future fate, I saw a secretary of the duke, accompanied by Macdonald, sent off to the headquarters of the enemy.

All was now over, and I thought of returning to my post at Paris. I spent the rest of the day in paying parting civilities to my gallant friends, and ordered my caleche to be in readiness by morning. But my prediction had been only too true, though I had not calculated on so rapid a fulfilment. The knowledge of the armistice was no sooner made public—and, to do the French general justice, he lost neither time nor opportunity—than it was regarded as a national triumph. The electric change of public opinion, in this most electric of all countries, raised the people from a condition of the deepest terror to the highest confidence. Every man in France was a soldier, and every soldier a hero. This was the miracle of twenty-four hours. Dumourier's force instantly swelled to 100,000 men. He might have had a million, if he had asked for them. The whole country became impassable. Every village poured out its company of armed peasants; and, notwithstanding the diplomatic cessation of hostilities, a real, universal, and desperate peasant war broke upon us on every side.

After a week of this most harassing warfare, in which we lost ten times the number of men which it would have cost to march over the bodies of Dumourier's army to the capital, the order was issued for a general retreat to the frontier. I remembered Mordecai's letter; but it was now too late. Even if I could have turned my horse's head to a French post, I felt myself bound to share the fortunes of the gallant army to which I had been so closely attached. In the heat of youth, I went even further, and, as my mission had virtually ceased, and I wore a Prussian order, I took the undiplomatic step of proposing to act as one of the duke's aides-de-camp until the army had left the enemy's territory. Behold me now, a hulan of the duke's guard! I found no reason to repent my choice, though our service was remarkably severe. The present war was chiefly against the light troops and irregulars of the retreating army—the columns being too formidable to admit of attack, at least by the multitude. Forty thousand men, of the main army of France, were appointed to the duty of "seeing us out of the country." But every attempt at foraging, every movement beyond the range of our cannon, was instantly met by a peasant skirmish. Every village approached by our squadrons, exhibited a barricade, from which we were fired on; every forest produced a succession of sharp encounters; and the passage of every river required as much precaution, and as often produced a serious contest, as if we were at open war. Thus we were perpetually on the wing, and our personal escapes were often of the most hair-breadth kind. If we passed through a thicket, we were sure to be met by a discharge of bullets; if we dismounted from our horses to take our hurried and scanty meal, we found some of them shot at the inn-door; if we flung ourselves, as tired as hounds after a chase, on the straw of a village stable, the probability was that we were awakened by finding the thatch in a blaze. How often we envied the easier life of the battalions! But there an enemy, more fearful than the peasantry, began to show itself. The weather had changed to storms of rain and bitter wind; the plains of Champagne, never famed for fertility, were now as wild and bare as a Russian steppe. The worst provisions, supplied on the narrowest scale—above all, disgust, the most fatal canker of the soldier's soul—spread disease among the ranks; and the roads on which we followed the march, gave terrible evidence of the havoc that every hour made among them. The mortality at last became so great, that it seemed not unlikely that the whole army would thus melt away before it reached the boundary of this land of death.

The horror of the scene even struck the peasantry, and whether through fear of the contagion, or through the uselessness of hunting down men who were treading to the grave by thousands, the peasantry ceased to follow us. Yet such was the wretchedness of that hideous progress, that this cessation of hostility was scarcely a relief. The animation of the skirmishes, though it often cost life, yet kept the rest more alive; the strategem, the adventure, the surprise, nay, even the failure and escape, relieved us from the dreadful monotony of the life, or rather the half-existence, to which we were now condemned. Our buoyant and brilliant career was at an end; we were now only the mutes and mourners of a funeral procession of seventy thousand men.

I still look back with an indescribable shudder at the scenes which we were compelled to witness from day to day during that month of misery; for the march, which began in the first days of October, was protracted till its end. I had kept up my spirits when many a more vigorous frame had sunk, and many a maturer mind had desponded; but the perpetual recurrence of the same dreary spectacles, the dying, and the more fortunate dead, covering the highways, the fields, and the village streets, at length sank into my soul. Some recollections of earlier principles, and the memory of my old friend Vincent, prevented my taking the summary and unhappy means of ridding myself of my burden, which I saw daily resorted to among the soldiery—a bullet through the brain, or a bayonet through the heart, cured all. But, thanks to early impressions, I was determined to wait the hand of the enemy, or the course of nature. Many a night I lay down beside my starving charger, with something of a hope that I should never see another morning; and many a morning, when I dragged my feeble limbs from the cold and wet ground, I looked round the horizon for the approach of some enemy's squadron, or peasant band, which might give me an honourable chance of escape from an existence now no longer endurable. But all was in vain. For leagues round no living object was visible, except that long column, silently and slowly winding on through the distance, like an army of spectres.

My diminished squadron had at length become almost the only rear-guard. From a hundred and fifty as fine fellows as ever sat a charger, we were now reduced to a third. All its officers, youths of the first families of Prussia, had either been left behind dying in the villages, or had been laid in the graves by the road-side, and I was now the only commandant. Perhaps even this circumstance was the means of saving my life. My new responsibility compelled me to make some exertion; and I felt that, live or die, I might still earn an honourable name. Even in those darkest hours, the thought that Clotilde might ask where and how I finished my ill-fortuned career, and perhaps give a moment's sorrow to one who remembered her to the last, had its share in restoring me to a sense of the world. In that sort of fond frenzy, which seems so fantastic when it is past, but so natural, and is actually so irresistible while it is in the mind, I wrote down my feelings, wild as they were—my impossible hopes, and a promise never to forget her while I remained in this world, and, if there could be an intercourse between the living and the dead, in that world to which I felt myself hastening. I then bade her a solemn and heartfelt farewell. Placing the paper in my bosom, with a locket containing a ringlet of her beautiful hair, which Marianne had contrived to obtain for me, the only legacy I had to offer, I felt as if I had done my last duty among mankind.

Still we wandered on, through a country which had the look of a boundless cemetery. Not a peasant was met; not a sound of human labour, joy or sorrow, reached the ear; not a smoke rose from mansion or cottage; all was still, except when the wind burst in bitter gusts over the plain, or the almost ceaseless rain swelled into sheets, and sent the rivers roaring down before us. If the land had never been inhabited, or had been swept of its inhabitants by an avenging Providence, it could not have been more solitary. I never conceived the idea of the wilderness before. It was the intensity of desolation.

We seemed even to make no progress. We began to think that the scene would never change. But one evening, when the troop had lain down under the shelter of a knoll, my sergeant, a fine Hungarian, whose eyes had been sharpened by hussar service on the Turkish border, aroused me, saying that he had discovered French horse-tracks in advance of us. We were all instantly on the alert, the horse-tracks were found to be numerous, and it was evident that a strong body of the enemy's cavalry had managed to get in between us and the army. It is true that there was a treaty, in which the unmolested movement of the duke was an article. But, it might have been annulled; or the French general might have been inclined to make a daring experiment on our worn-down battalions; or, at all events, it was our business to keep him as far off as we could. We were on horseback immediately. The track led us along the high-road for one or two leagues and then turned off towards a village on a height at some distance. We now paused, and the question was, whether to follow the enemy, or to dismount and try to rest ourselves, and our tired horses, for the night. We had scarcely come to the decision of unloosing girths, when the sky above the village showed a sudden glow; and a confused clamour of voices came upon the wind. Dispatching an orderly to the duke, to inform him of the French movement, we rode towards the village. We found the road in its immediate neighbourhood covered with fugitives; who, however, instead of flying from us with the usual horror of the peasantry, threw themselves beside our stirrups, hung on our bridles, and implored us with every wild gesticulation to hasten to the gates. All that I could learn from the outcries of men, women, and children, was, that their village, or rather town—for we found it of considerable size—had been the quarters of some of the Austrian cavalry, and that the officers had given a ball, to which the leading families had been invited. The ball was charged as a national crime by the democrats in Paris, and a regiment of horse had been sent to punish the unfortunate town.