g for the match; and as the outrage will
be inflicted conjointly and diplomatically, any demand for personal
satisfaction will be vain, while a very slight hint at the Prefecture
would suffice to have me expelled from the country."

Should I confront this danger, or hazard the risk of such an exposure,
or should I suffer judgment to be given against me by default? What
a trying alternative! In the one case, a peril the greater for
its shadowy, ill-defined consequences; in the other, certain and
irretrievable disgrace! How often did I curse my ambitious yearning
after wealth, that had not left me contented with my own fortune,--the
hard-won, but incontestable, rewards of personal distinction. As the
gallant officer who had gained each step upon the field of battle, and
whose services had claimed the especial notice of his prince, I ought to
have rested satisfied.

My promotion would have been certain and rapid, and what higher
condition should I dare to aspire to than the command of a French
regiment, or possibly some brilliant staff appointment? Why will not
men look downward as they climb the mountain of life, and see the humble
abyss from which they have issued? Were they but to do so, how many
would be convinced that they had done enough, and not risk all by
striving to mount higher! The son of the poor peasant a General of
Division!--one among that decorated group surrounding the sovereign of a
great nation!--was not this sufficient? And so much assuredly was within
my reach, merely by length of life and the ordinary routine of events!
And yet all this must I jeopardize for the sake of gold! And now
what course should I adopt? My whole philosophy through life had
been comprised in that one word which summed up all Marshal Blucher's
"tactics,"--"Forwards!"nIt had sufficed for me in many a trying
emergency,--it had cut the black knot of many a tangle;--should I not
still abide by it? Of course. This was not the moment to abandon the
bold policy.

From the "host of mine inn" I learned that the Spanish minister, whose
receptions were little less splendid than those of the court itself,
occupied a position which in countries of more rigid morality would have
left his salons less crowded. In fact, it was asserted that he owed his
eminent station to his having consented to marry a lady who had once
been the rival of royalty itself in Spain, and whose banishment had
been thus secured. Being still in the full pride of her