in ecstasy, 'Yes! Pere Michel, you have guessed aright,
my heart's ambition is to be a soldier, and I want but your blessing to
be a brave one.'

'And thou shalt have it. A thousand blessings follow those who go forth
to the good fight. But thou art yet young, Maurice--too young for this.
Thou needest time, and much teaching, too. He who would brave the enemy
before us, must be skilful as well as courageous. Thou art as yet but a
child.'

'The general said he liked boy-soldiers,' said I promptly; 'he told me
so himself.'

'What general--who told thee?' cried the pere, in trembling eagerness.

'General Lacoste, the Chef d'Etat-major of the army of the Rhine; the
same who gave me a rendezvous for to-morrow at his quarters.'

It was not till I had repeated my explanation again and again, nor,
indeed, until I had recounted all the circumstances of my last night's
adventure, that the poor pere could be brought to see his way through a
mystery that had almost become equally embarrassing to myself. When he
did, however, detect the clue, and when he had perceived the different
tracks on which our minds were travelling, his grief burst all bounds.
He inveighed against the armies of the Republic as hordes of pillagers
and bandits, the sworn enemies of the Church, the desecrators of her
altars. Their patriotism he called a mere pretence to shroud their
infidelity. Their heroism was the bloodthirstiness of democratic
cruelty. Seeing me still unmoved by all this passionate declamation,
he adopted another tactic, and suddenly asked me if it were for such a
cause as this my father had been a soldier?

'No!' replied I firmly; 'for when my father was alive, the soil of
France had not been desecrated by the foot of the invader. The Austrian,
the Prussian, the Englishman, had not yet dared to dictate the laws
under which we were to live.'

He appeared thunderstruck at my reply, revealing, as it seemed to him,
the extent of those teachings, whose corruptions he trembled at.

'I knew it, I knew it!' cried he bitterly, as he wrung his hands. 'The
seed of the iniquity is sown--the harvest-time will not be long in
coming! And so, boy, thou hast spoken with one of these men--these
generals, as they call themselves, of that republican horde?'

'The officer who commands the artillery of the army of the Rhine may
write himself general with little presumption,' said I, almost angrily.

'They who once led our armies to battle were the nob