near, while I became the centre of some dozen
officers, all eagerly asking the news from Paris, and whether the
Emperor had yet left the capital. It was not without considerable
astonishment I then perceived how totally ignorant they all were of the
destination of the army; many alleging it was designed for Russia,
and others equally positive that the Prussians were the object of
attack,--the arguments in support of each opinion being wonderfully
ingenious, and only deficient in one respect, having not a particle of
fact for their foundation.

In the midst of these conjecturings came a new subject for discussion;
for one of the group, who had just received a letter from his brother, a
page at the Tuileries, was reading the contents aloud for the benefit of
the rest:--

"Jules says that they are all astray as to the Emperor's movements.
Duroc has left Paris suddenly, but no one knows for where; the only
thing certain is, a hot campaign is to open somewhere. One hundred and
eighty thousand men--"

"Bah!" said an old, white-mustached major, with a look of evident
unbelief; "we never had forty with the army of the Sambre."

"And what then?" said another, fiercely. "Do you compare your army of
the Sambre, your sans-culottes Republicans, with the Imperial troops?"

The old major's face became deeply crimsoned, and with a muttered _A
demain_ he walked away.

"Go after him, Amedee," said another; "you had no right to say that."

"Not I, faith," said the other, carelessly. "There is a grudge between
us these three weeks past, and we may as well have it out. Go on with
the letter, Henri."

"Oh, it is filled with Court gossip," said the reader, negligently. "Ha!
what is this, though?--the postscript:--

"'I have just time to tell you the strangest bit of news we have chanced
upon for some time past. The Emperor has this moment married old
General d'Auvergne to the very handsomest girl in the Empress's
suite,--Mademoiselle de Meudon. There is a rumor afloat about the old
man having made her his heir, and desiring to confer her hand on
some young fellow of his own choosing. But this passion to make Court
matches, which has seized his Majesty lately, stops at nothing; and it
is whispered that old Madame d'Orvalle is actually terrified at every
levee lest she should be disposed of to one of the new marshals. I must
say that the general looks considerably put out by the arrangement,--not
unnaturally, perhaps, as he is likel