ing
corn, interspersed with bounteous orchards and hardy vines climbing up
to the very tops of the mulberry-trees. His battalion forms the extreme
end of the advance guard, and at the approach of night, Claudet is on
duty on the banks of the stream. It is a lovely May night, irradiated
by millions of stars, which, under the limpid Italian sky, appear larger
and nearer to the watcher than they appeared in the vaporous atmosphere
of the Haute-Marne.

Nightingales are calling to one another among the trees of the orchard,
and the entire landscape seems imbued with their amorous music. What
ecstasy to listen to them! What serenity their liquid harmonies spread
over the smiling landscape, faintly revealing its beauties in the mild
starlight.

Who would think that preparations for deadly combat were going on
through the serenity of such a night? Occasionally a sharp exchange of
musketry with the advanced post of the enemy bursts upon the ear, and
all the nightingales keep silence. Then, when quiet is restored in the
upper air, the chorus of spring songsters begins again. Claudet leans
on his gun, and remembers that at this same hour the nightingales in the
park at Vivey, and in the garden of La Thuiliere, are pouring forth
the same melodies. He recalls the bright vision of Reine: he sees her
leaning at her window, listening to the same amorous song issuing from
the coppice woods of Maigrefontaine. His heart swells within him, and an
over-powering homesickness takes possession of him. But the next moment
he is ashamed of his weakness, he remembers his responsibility, primes
his ear, and begins investigating the dark hollows and rising hillocks
where an enemy might hide.

The next morning, May 20th, he is awakened by a general hubbub and noise
of fighting. The battalion to which he belongs has made an attack upon
Montebello, and is sending its sharpshooters among the cornfields and
vineyards. Some of the regiments invade the rice-fields, climb the walls
of the vineyards, and charge the enemy's column-ranks. The sullen
roar of the cannon alternates with the sharp report of guns, and whole
showers of grape-shot beat the air with their piercing whistle. All
through the uproar of guns and thunder of the artillery, you can
distinguish the guttural hurrahs of the Austrians, and the broken oaths
of the French troopers. The trenches are piled with dead bodies, the
trumpets sound the attack, the survivors, obeying an irresistible
im