verely tested, for we have successively descended from cows and
sheep to goats, horses, donkeys, dogs, occasionally experimenting on
hides and shoe-leather, till we ended by regarding a rat as a rarity,
and deeming a mouse a delicacy of the season. As for vegetables,
there would not have been a flowering plant in all Genoa, if tulip
and ranunculus roots had not been bitter as aloes. These seem very
inhospitable confessions, but I make them the more freely since I am
about to treat you _en gourmet_. Come in now, and acknowledge that
juniper bark isn't bad coffee, and that commissary bread is not to be
thought of "lightly."'

In this fashion did my comrade invite me to a meal, which, even with
this preface, was far more miserable and scanty than I looked for.

CHAPTER XXXV. A NOVEL COUNCIL OP WAR

I had scarcely finished my breakfast, when a group of officers rode up
to our quarters to visit me. My arrival had already created an immense
sensation in the city, and all kinds of rumours were afloat as to the
tidings I had brought. The meagreness of the information would, indeed,
have seemed in strong contrast to the enterprise and hazard of the
escape, had I not the craft to eke it out by that process of suggestion
and speculation in which I was rather an adept.

Little in substance as my information was, all the younger officers
were in favour of acting upon it. The English are no bad judges of our
position and chances, was the constant argument. They see exactly how we
stand; they know the relative forces of our army and the enemy's; and if
the 'cautious islanders'--such was the phrase--advised a _coup de main_,
it surely must have much in its favour. I lay stress upon the remark,
trifling as it may seem; but it is curious to know, that with all the
immense successes of England on sea, her reputation at that time among
Frenchmen was rather for prudent and well-matured undertaking than for
those daring enterprises which are as much the character of her courage.

My visitors continued to pour in during the morning--officers of every
arm and rank, some from mere idle curiosity, some to question and
interrogate, and not a few to solve doubts in their mind as to my being
really French, and a soldier, and not an agent of that 'perfide Albion,'
whose treachery was become a proverb amongst us. Many were disappointed
at my knowing so little. I neither could tell the date of Napoleon's
passing St. Gothard, nor the amount o