which had come from Metz, were manoeuvring to take us in flank; they had with them several field-pieces, whose fire told severely upon our volunteer corps. I heard the cries of some recruits who had been struck-the last cries of youth snatched away in the vigour of life; the sounds filled me with compassion, as I thought on the poor mothers.

The drums beat the charge, and we rushed in disorder upon the enemy. We approached so near each other that, notwithstanding the smoke, the terrible countenances of men ready to shed our blood could be distinctly seen. The patriots had not yet acquired that bearing which is only gained by a long familiarity with engagements and victory; their movements were slow and irresolute; fifty grenadiers of the old guard would have easily routed a heterogeneous mass of old and young undisciplined nobles; a thousand to twelve hundred infantry were struck with alarm at the fire of a few discharges from the heavy artillery of the Austrians; they retreated; our cavalry pursued them for two leagues.

A deaf and dumb German girl, called Libbe or Libba, had become attached to my cousin Armand, and followed him. I found her seated upon the grass, which stained her dress with blood; she sat with her elbow supported by her bent and raised knees, and her head leaning on her hand, which was passed under her fair dishevelled hair. She wept as she gazed at three or four dead bodies-now deaf and dumb-which lay scattered around her. She had not heard the noise of the cannon, the effects of which were before her; she did not hear the sighs which escaped from her lips when she looked at Armand; she had never heard the voice of him whom she loved; had the tomb merely contained silence, she would have gone down to the grave unconscious of being there.

Moreover, fields of carnage are everywhere; in the eastern cemetery at Paris twenty-seven thousand tombs, two hundred and thirty thousand bodies, will teach you what a battle death is waging night and day at your doors.

After a halt of some length, we resumed our march, and arrived by night-fall under the walls of Thionville.

The drums were no longer beaten; the word of command was given in a low tone. With a view to check a sortie, the cavalry moved quietly along the high-roads and hedges to the very gates of Thionville, against which we were to open a

cannonade. The Austrian artillery, protected by our infantry, took up a position at a distance of fifty yards from the advanced works behind some gabions shouldered up in a hurry. At one o'clock in the morning of the 6th of September, a signal was given by a rocket thrown up from the camp of the Prince of Waldeck at the other side of the town. The prince opened a continuous fire, which was vigorously answered from the town. We immediately opened our fire.

The besieged not thinking that we had any troops in that direction, and not having expected an attack from that quarter, had nothing on the ramparts to the south; we had not long to wait; the garrison mounted a double battery, which soon drove through our defences, and dismounted two of our guns. The sky was in a blaze, and we were buried in clouds of smoke. I had the good luck to be a little Alexander; worn out with fatigue, I was in a deep sleep almost under the wheels of the gun-carriages where I was on guard. A splinter from a shell, which had ploughed up the ground six inches, struck me on the right thigh. Roused by the stroke, but not being sensible of the pain, I only saw that I was wounded by the appearance of the blood. I bound up my thigh with my pocket-handkerchief. During the affair on the plain, the balls struck my knapsack whilst in the act of wheeling. Atala, like a devoted daughter, placed herself between her father and the enemy's ball; she remained to sustain the fire of the Abbé Morellet.

At four o'clock in the morning the Prince of Waldeck's fire ceased: we thought the town had surrendered; but the gates were not opened, and we were now obliged to think of a retreat. We returned to our positions, after a harassing march of three days.

The Prince of Waldeck had advanced to the very edge of the ditch, which he had attempted to clear, hoping to secure a surrender by means of a simultaneous attack; the impression was, that there were divisions within the town, and they flattered themselves that the royalist party would bring the keys to the prince. The Austrians, having fired without sufficient shelter, lost a considerable number of men, and one of the Prince of Waldeck's arms was shot Whilst these drops away. of blood were shed under the walls of Thionville, torrents were flowing in the prisons of Paris; my wife and my sisters were in greater danger than myself.

RAISING THE SIEGE-ENTRY INTO VERDUN-SICKNESS AMONG THE PRUSSIANS-RETREAT-SMALL-POX.

WE relinquished the siege of Thionville, and set out for Verdun-surrendered to the allies on the 2nd of September. Longwy, the native town of François de Mercy, had fallen on the 28th of August. The passage of Frederick William was attested on all sides by garlands and crowns.

In the midst of these trophies of peace, I observed the Prussian eagle displayed on the fortifications of Vauban: it was not to remain there long; as for the flowers, they were destined speedily to fade, like the innocent creatures who had gathered them. One of the most atrocious murders of the reign of terror was that of the young girls of Verdun.

"Fourteen young girls of Verdun, of rare beauty, and almost like young virgins dressed for a public fête, were," says Riouffe, "led in a body to the scaffold. They soon faded away, and were cut down in their spring; on the day after their immolation, the Cour des femmes had the appearance of a flower-garden desolated by a storm. I never saw amongst us any despair like that which this act of infamous cruelty excited."

Verdun is celebrated for its sacrifices of women. According to Gregory of Tours, Deuteric, wishing to conceal his daughter from the pursuits of Théodebert, caused her to be placed in a tumbril harnessed to two wild oxen, and driven headlong into the Meuse. The instigator of the massacre of the young girls of Verdun was the poetaster regicide-Pons de Verdun, who was filled with fiendish enmity to his native city. It is almost incredible that the Almanach des Muses should have furnished agents for the reign of terror; the vanity of mediocrity in a state of suffering produced as many revolutionists as the wounded pride of cripples and abortions; a rebellion alike of the infirmities of the mind and those of the body. Pons gave to his dull epigram the point of a poniard. Apparently faithful to the traditions of Greece, the poet was desirous of offering in honour of his gods nothing but the blood of virgins; for the Convention, on his reports, declared that no pregnant woman should be put on trial. He also

caused the sentence passed on Madame de Bonchamp, widow of the celebrated Vendean general, to be rescinded. Alas! We other royalists in the suite of the princes, suffered the same reverses as the Vendeans, but without having shared in their glory.

We had not at Verdun, to pass the time, "that famous Countess de St. Balmont, who, after having laid aside female attire to assume that of a man, mounted on horseback, and acted as an escort to the ladies who accompanied her, and whom she had left in the carriage." We were not empassioned in favour of the ancient Gaul, and did not write letters in the language of Amadis.-(Arnauld.)

The sickness which affected the Prussians was communicated to our little army; I was attacked by it. Our cavalry had gone to join Frederick William at Valmy. We had no knowledge of what was passing, and from hour to hour were expecting orders to advance; we were, however, commanded to beat

a retreat.

Being extremely weakened, and the annoyance of my wound not suffering me to march except with great pain, I dragged myself along, as I best could, in the rear of my company, which speedily disbanded. Jean Balue, the son of a miller in Verdun, left the house of his father when very young, in the company of a monk, who loaded him with his wallet. On going out of Verdun, according to Soumaise, the colline du gué (Ver dunum), I carried the wallet of the monarchy, but I have neither become controller of finance, bishop, nor cardinal.

If, in the novels which I have written, I have sometimes touched on my own history, in the histories I have related, I have often drawn scenes from the history of life in which I was an actor. Thus, in the "Life of the Duc de Berry," I have sketched some scenes which actually took place under my own eyes:

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"When an army is broken up, the men return to their homes; but what homes had the soldiers of Condé's army Where was the stick to guide them, which they had been hardly permitted to cut in the woods of Germany, after having laid down the gun, which they had taken up for the defence of their king?

"It was necessary to separate. Brethren in arms said their last farewell, and went their different ways upon the earth.

Before setting out, all went to pay their respects to their father and their captain; the aged Condé, with his white hair, the patriarch of glory, gave his blessing to his children, wept over his scattered tribe, and saw the tents of his camp struck with the vexation of a man who looks upon his paternal home crumbling into ruins."

Less than twenty years afterwards, Bonaparte, the chief of the new French army, also took leave of his companions; so quickly do men and empires pass away! The most extraordinary renown is not safe from the most ordinary destiny!

We left Verdun. The rains had made the roads heavy, and on every side were to be seen waggons, tumbrils, and cannon, fixed in the mire, vivandières with their children on their backs, and soldiers, dead and dying, on the ground. In crossing some rough ground, I sank up to my knees. Ferron and another of my comrades extricated me, notwithstanding my prayers to be left there, as I was ready to die.

M. de Goyon Miniac, the captain of my company, delivered to me a very honourable testimonial on the 16th of October, at the camp near Longwy. At Arlon we saw, upon the high-road, a file of baggage waggons; the horses were dead, some being held upright, some forced down upon their knees, and others with their heads to the ground; and their carcases remained fixed between the shafts: they might have been considered as the shades of a battle, bivouacking on the banks of the Styx. Ferron asked me what I intended to do, and I replied, "If I can reach Ostend, I shall embark there for Jersey, where I shall find my uncle de Bedée; from thence I shall be able to rejoin the royalists in Brittany."

The fever undermined my strength, and I sustained myself with the greatest difficulty upon my swollen legs. I also suffered under the attacks of another disease: the small-pox attacked me: after suffering from nausea and vomiting for four-and-twenty hours, an eruption broke out all over my body, which appeared and disappeared alternately, according to the state of the atmosphere. In this condition, I commenced on foot a journey of two hundred leagues, with no more than eighteen livres Tournois in my pocket. All for the glory of the monarchy! Ferron, who had lent me my six three-francpieces, being expected at Luxembourg, separated from me.