lightest word, his
least gesture, was attended to; and though evidently taciturn and quiet,
when he spoke I could detect in his manner an air of promptitude and
command that marked him as one born to be above his fellows. If he
seemed such in the idle hours, on parade he was the beau ideal of
a cuirassier. His great warhorse, seemingly small for the immense
proportions of the heavy rider, bounded with each movement of his wrist,
as if instinct with the horseman's wishes.

I waited with some impatience for the invalid's arrival, to ask who this
remarkable soldier was, certain that I should hear of no common man. He
came soon after, and as I pointed out the object of my curiosity, the
old fellow drew himself up with pride, and while a grim effort at a
smile crossed his features, replied,--

"That 's Pioche,--le gros Pioche!"

"Pioche!" said I, repeating the name aloud, and endeavoring to remember
why it seemed well known to me.

"Yes,--Pioche," rejoined he, gruffly. "If monsieur had ever been in
Egypt, the name would scarcely sound so strange in his ears." And with
this sarcasm he hobbled from the room and closed the door, while I could
hear him grumbling along the entire corridor, in evident anger at the
ignorance that did not know "Pioche!"

Twenty times did I repeat the name aloud, before it flashed across me as
the same Madame Lefebvre mentioned at the soiree in the Palace. It
was Pioche who shouldered the brass fieldpiece, and passed before the
general on parade. The gigantic size, the powerful strength, the strange
name,--all could belong to no other; and I felt as though at once I had
found an old acquaintance in the great cuirassier of the Guard.

If the prisoner in his lonely cell has few incidents to charm his
solitary hours, in return he is enabled by some happy gift to make these
the sources of many thoughts. The gleam of light that falls upon the
floor, broken by the iron gratings of his window, comes laden with
storied fancies of other lands,--of far distant countries where men
are dwelling in their native mountains free and happy. Forgetful of his
prison, the captive wanders in his fancy through valleys he has seen
in boyhood, and with friends to be met no more. He turns gladly to the
past, of whose pleasures no adverse fortune can deprive him, and lives
over again the happy hours of his youth; and thinks, with a melancholy
not devoid of its own pleasure, of what they would feel who loved him
could t