both temples and crushed the brain.-Noble and useless victim of a hopeless cause! When Marshal d'Aubeterre held the States of Brittany, he went to the house of M. de la Baronnais, the father, a poor gentleman, living at Dinard, near St. Malo; the marshal, who had begged him to invite no one, perceived on his entrance that the table was laid for twenty-five people, and amicably reproved his host.

"Monseigneur," said M. de la Baronnais, "there are none here but my own children."

He had twenty-two sons and one daughter, all by the same marriage.

The Revolution mowed this rich family harvest before it had time to ripen.

London, April to September, 1822.

CONTINUATION OF THE SIEGE-CONTRASTS-SAINTS IN THE WOODSBATTLE OF BOUVINES-PATROL-UNEXPECTED MEETING-EFFECT OF A BULLET AND OF A BOMB.

WALDECK'S Austrian corps now began its operations. Our attack became warmer; it was a fine sight at night; pot-grenados illuminated the works which were covered with soldiers; sudden gleams of brilliancy struck the clouds, or the blue sky, when the match exploded the cannon, and the bombs, crossing one another's path in the air, described parabolas of light. In the intervals of the detonations might be heard the roll of the drum, bursts of military music, and the voices of the hostile parties on the ramparts of Thionville and on our posts; unhap pily, in both camps, the cry was in French "Sentinelles, prenez garde à vous."

If the engagements took place at dawn, the hymn of the lark succeeded to the roll of musketry, and the now noiseless cannon gaped silently at us from their loop-holes. The bird's song, bringing recollections of a pastoral life to the mind, seemed to utter a reproach. It gave me the same feeling when I encountered some victims of war among the flowering clover, or by a running stream which bathed the tresses of the dead. In the woods, at a few paces distance from the horrors of war,

I found little statues of the Virgin and of various Saints. A goatherd, a shepherd, or a beggar carrying his wallet, on their knees before these peace-makers, told their beads to the distant thunder of the cannon. A whole parish once came with its pastor to offer bouquets to the patron of a neighbouring parish, whose shrine was in a grove, facing a fountain. The curate was blind; a soldier of religion, he had lost his sight in its service, like a grenadier on the field of battle. The vicar administered the communion instead of his curate, because the latter could not see to place the sacred host on the lips of the communicants. During this ceremony, and from the depths of his darkness, the curate blessed the light.

Our fathers believed that the patron saints of hamlets, Jean le Silentiaire, Dominique l'Encuirassé, Jacques l'Intercis, Paul le Simple, Basle l'Ermite, and many others, were no strangers to the triumphs of the arms by which harvests are protected. On the very day of the battle of Bouvines, robbers entered a convent at Auxerre, of which St. Germain was the patron, and stole the sacramental vessels. The sacristan presented himself before the shrine of the beatified bishop, and said to him, groaning meanwhile: "Germain, where wert thou when these brigands dared to violate thy sanctuary ?" And a voice issuing from the shrine replied: "I was near Cisoing, not far from the bridge of Bouvines, engaged, with other fellowsaints, in aiding the French and their King, to whom a brilliant victory has been given by our help :

ments.

"Cui fuit auxilio victoria præstita nostro."

We held battues in the plain, and carried them as far as the hamlets, to the very foot of the exterior fortifications of Thionville. The village on the great tran:-Moselle road was unceasingly taken and retaken. Twice I was present at these engageThe patriots treated us as enemies to liberty, aristocrats, satellites of Capet; we called them brigands, cutthroats, traitors, and revolutionists. Sometimes the engagement was suspended while a duel took place in presence of the hostile bands, now become impartial witnesses; strange characteristic of the French, which not even violent passions can stifle !

One day I was on patrol in a vineyard; at about twenty paces from me was an old gentleman chasseur, who kept strik

ing the vines with the butt end of his gun as if to start a hare, and then looked briskly about in the hope of seeing a patriot start out; every one there had his own ways.

Another day, I went to visit the Austrian camp; between this encampment and that of the naval officers acting as cavalry, lay the ridge of a wood, upon which the enemy were very inappropriately directing their fire; they were too lavish of their volleys; the garrison believed us to be stronger than we really were, which explains the pompous bulletins of the commandant of Thionville. As I was crossing this wood, I saw something move among the grass; I went nearer, and saw a man extended on the ground, with his face downwards, so that nothing was to be seen but a broad back. I supposed him to be wounded, and taking him by the nape of the neck, partly raised his head. He opened his scared eyes, and lifted himself a little, resting on his hands; on catching sight of his face I burst out laughing; it was my cousin Moreau, whom I had not seen since our visit to Madame Chatenay.

He had thrown himself on his face at the descent of a bomb, and had found it utterly impossible to get up again; I had great trouble in getting him on his feet, for he had grown three times as corpulent as he was when I had last seen him. He informed me that he served in the commissariat department, and was then on his way to make an offer of some cattle to Prince Waldeck. He wore a rosary: Hugo Métel speaks of a wolf who had a desire to enter the monastic state, but not being able to accustom himself to the meagre fare, he became a canon.

As I was re-entering the camp, an officer of engineers passed close to me, leading his horse by the bridle; a ball struck the animal at the narrow part of the shoulder and cut completely through it; the head and neck remained hanging to the rider's hand, and pulled him to the ground by their weight. I had seen a bomb fall just in the middle of a circle of officers who were taking their mess together; the mess-bowl disappeared; the officers, knocked over and covered with dust, cried like the old sea-captain: "Fire to starboard, fire to larboard, fire everywhere! fire in my wig!"

These singular accidents appear to belong to Thionville: in 1558, Francis of Guise besieged the place; Marshal Strozzi was killed while speaking in the trench with the said Sieur de Guise, who at the moment had his hand on his shoulder.

London, April to September, 1822.

THE CAMP MARKET.

A KIND of market had been formed behind our camp. The peasants had brought quarter-casks of white Moselle wine, which remained on the waggons; the horses were unyoked and fed quietly, attached by a string to one end of the cart, while people drank at the other. The fires for bat-fowling gleamed here and there. Sausages were fried in saucepans, puddings boiled in basins, pancakes tossed on iron plates, and omelettes raised on baskets. Cakes covered with aniseed, rye-loaves a penny a-piece, cakes of Indian meal, green apples, red and white eggs, pipes and tobacco, were sold beneath a tree from whose branches hung coarse cloth caps, bargained for by the passers-by. Peasant-girls, seated astride on wooden stools, were employed in milking cows; every one gave his cup and awaited his turn. Sutlers in their blouses, soldiers in their uniforms, hovered about the ovens. Vivandières passed hither and thither, calling out in French and German. Some stood in groups, others were seated round deal tables standing unevenly on the rough ground; various inventions for shelter were made, some with a piece of packing-cloth, others with branches cut in the forest, as on Palm-Sunday. I think, too, that there were weddings performed in the covered waggons, in remembrance of the Frankish kings. The patriots might easily have followed the example of Majorian, and carried off the chariot containing the bride: Rapit esseda victor, nubentemque nurum. The people sang, laughed, and talked, and the scene was extremely gay at night, lighted up by the fires gleaming on the ground, and the stars shining overhead.

When I was neither on guard at the batteries, nor on service in the tent, I was fond of supping at this fair; there all the camp stories were revived, the battles fought over again; but embellished by good cheer and merriment, their attraction was much increased.

One of our comrades, a brevet-captain, was celebrated for his faculty of story-telling; I have forgotten his real name, as we gave him that of Dinarzade, and always called him by it; it

should have been Scheherazade, but we were not so particular. As soon as we caught sight of him we ran to him, and disputed him among ourselves; it was a contest who should get him into their mess. Dinarzade was a short man, with long legs, a fallen-in face, gloomy moustachios, eyes whose pupils had a decided preference for the outward angle, a hollow voice, a large sword with a light brown scabbard, and the air of a military poet; a serious and solemn joker, who never laughed at any thing, and at whom one could not look without laughing. He was a witness to all the duels, and the lover of all the ladies at the counters. He took every thing he said in a tragic light, and only interrupted his narrative to drink with the same air from a bottle, to re-kindle his pipe, or to swallow a sausage.

One night, when a small fine rain was falling, we formed ourselves into a circle near the tap of a cask, which leaned over towards us on a cart, whose shafts were in the air. A candle fastened to the cask lighted us, and a piece of coarse_cloth, stretched from the shafts of the cart to two posts, served us as a roof. Dinarzade, with his sword awry, in the fashion of Frederick II., standing between the wheel of the cart and the side of a horse, related a story to our great satisfaction. The vivandières, who brought us our allowance, remained to listen to our Arab, and the attentive group of Bacchantes and Silenuses who formed the chorus, accompanied the narrative with marks of surprise, approbation, or disapproval.

66

"Gentlemen," said the orator, you all knew the Green Knight, who lived in the time of King John?"

"Yes, yes," replied the chorus. Dinarzade gulped down a rolled pancake and burned himself.

"This Green Knight, gentlemen, was, as you must know, since you have seen him, extremely handsome; when the wind blew back his red hair over his helmet, it looked like a wreath of hemp round a green turban."

"Bravo!" cried the chorus.

"One evening in May, he blew his horn at the drawbridge of a castle in Picardy, or Auvergne, no matter which. In this castle lived la Dame des grandes compagnies. She received the knight well; the attendants removed his armour and conducted him to the bath; the lady then sat down with him to a magnificent repast; but she ate nothing, and the attendants were dumb."