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caused the sentence passed on Madame de Bonchamp, widow of the celebrated Vendean general, to be rescinded.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::

"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.

London, from April till September, 1822.

Revised in February, 1845.

THE ARDENNES.

GOING out of Arlon, I met with a peasant who gave me a lift in his car for four sous, and put me down on a heap of stones five leagues distant from our starting place. Having hobbled along a few paces by the aid of my crutch, I washed the linen of my scratch, now become a sore, in a brook which ran by the road side; this did me great good. The small-pox had come completely out, and I felt myself greatly relieved. I had never given up my knapsack, the fastenings of which galled my shoulders.

My first night I passed in a barn, and ate nothing. The wife of the peasant who was owner of the barn refused to take any money for my lodging; and at break of day she brought me a large basin of café au lait, with a piece of black bread, which I relished exceedingly. So refreshed, I gaily resumed my journey, although I often fell down. I was rejoined by four or five of my comrades, who relieved me of my knapsack; although they, too, were ill. We met with villagers; by cart after cart for five days we had got far enough into the Ardennes to reach Attert, Flamizoul, and Bellevue. On the sixth day I was again alone. The small-pox was becoming white, and gradually falling away.

After having walked two leagues, which cost me six hours' time, I perceived a family of gipsies, with two goats and an ass, encamped behind a ditch, and sitting round a fire of sticks. I had scarcely arrived, when I sank down, and these singular creatures made haste to render me aid. A young woman in rags, lively, brown, and headstrong, sang, leaped, and wheeled about, holding her child across her bosom, like a hurdy-gurdy, with which she would have given life to the dance; then she sat down on her heels directly opposite, examined me curiously by the light of the fire, and asking me for a petit sou, took hold of my dying hand to tell my fortune; it was too dear. It would have been difficult to show more science, grace, and misery than fell to the lot of this sibyl of the Ardennes. I know not when the nomades, of whom I should have been a worthy son,

left me. When I roused from my stupor at daybreak, I found them no longer there. My good fortune-teller had gone away with the secrets of my future life in her keeping. In exchange for my petit sou, she had left an apple near my head, which served to refresh my mouth. I shook myself like Jeannot Lapin among the thyme and the dew, but I could neither feed nor run nor leap playfully around. I rose, nevertheless, intending to pay my court to Aurora. She was very beautiful, and I very ugly; her rosy face announced her good health. She was better than the poor Cephalus of Armorica. Although both young, yet were we old friends; and I pleased myself by thinking that that morning her tears were for me.

I plunged into the forest, no longer very melancholy; solitude had restored me to nature. I carolled the romance of

the unfortunate Cazotte :

Tout au beau milieu des Ardennes,

Est un château sur le haut d'un rocher, &c., &c.

Was it not in the keep of this castle of phantoms that Philip II. of Spain imprisoned my fellow countryman, Captain la Noue, whose grandmother was a Chateaubriand? Philip consented to release the illustrious prisoner, if the latter would agree to have his eyes scooped out; La Noue was so eager to return to his dear Brittany, that he was just on the point of accepting the conditions. Alas! I was full of the same desire, and to deprive me of my sight, nothing more was needed than an illness with which it had pleased God to afflict me. I did not meet with Sire Enguerrand venant d'Espagne, but with some poor unfortunate foreign pedlars, who, like myself, carried all their goods upon their backs. A woodman, with kneepieces of felt, was entering the wood; he might have taken me for a dead branch and cut me down. Some rooks, larks, and yellowhammers ran along the road, or sat motionless on the tops of the stones, carefully watching the hawk which was hovering around in the air. From time to time I heard the sound of the swineherd's trumpet, looking after the sows and their young ones among the oaks. I stopped to take some rest in a shepherd's moveable hut; there was no master in the place, except a kitten, which offered me a thousand caresses. The shepherd remained standing at a distance, in the centre of an open space, with his dogs stationed at different distances