or the French general might have been inclined to make a
daring experiment on our worn-down battalions; or, at all events, it was
our business to keep him as far off as we could. We were on horseback
immediately. The track led us along the high-road for one or two leagues
and then turned off towards a village on a height at some distance. We now
paused, and the question was, whether to follow the enemy, or to dismount
and try to rest ourselves, and our tired horses, for the night. We had
scarcely come to the decision of unloosing girths, when the sky above the
village showed a sudden glow; and a confused clamour of voices came upon
the wind. Dispatching an orderly to the duke, to inform him of the French
movement, we rode towards the village. We found the road in its immediate
neighbourhood covered with fugitives; who, however, instead of flying from
us with the usual horror of the peasantry, threw themselves beside our
stirrups, hung on our bridles, and implored us with every wild
gesticulation to hasten to the gates. All that I could learn from the
outcries of men, women, and children, was, that their village, or rather
town--for we found it of considerable size--had been the quarters of some
of the Austrian cavalry, and that the officers had given a ball, to which
the leading families had been invited. The ball was charged as a national
crime by the democrats in Paris, and a regiment of horse had been sent to
punish the unfortunate town.

To attack such a force with fifty worn-out men, was obviously hopeless,
and my hulans, brave as they were, hung down their heads; but a fresh
concourse came rushing from the gates with even louder outcries than
before, and the words, _massacre_ and _conflagration_, were heard with
fearful emphasis. While I pondered for a moment on our want of means, a
fine old man, with his white hair stained with blood from a sabre wound in
his forehead, clung to my charger's neck, and implored me, by the honour
of soldiership, to make but one effort against the revolutionary brigands,
as he termed them. "I am a French officer and noble!" he exclaimed--"I
have served my king, I have a son in the army of Conde, and now the
wretches have seized on my only daughter, my Amalia, and they are carrying
her to their accursed guillotine." I could resist no longer; yet I looked
round despairingly at my force. "Follow me," said the agonized old man;
"one half of the villains are drunk in the cafes already, the