de
jest with some grognard of the Garde, or commanding, in tones of loud
superiority, the marshals who stood awaiting his orders. The Emperor,
he said, never liked the Germans; and although many evinced a warm
attachment to his person and his cause, they were not Frenchmen, and he
could not forgive it. The Alsatians he trusted, and was partial to; but
his sympathies stopped short at the Rhine; and he always felt that if
fortune turned, the wrongs of Germany must have their recompense.

While speaking freely on these matters, I remarked that he studiously
avoided all mention of his own services--a mere passing mention of 'I
was there,' or, 'My regiment was engaged in it,' being the extent of
his observations regarding himself. His age and rank, his wound itself,
showed that he must have seen service in its most active times; and my
curiosity was piqued to learn something of his own history, but which I
did not feel myself entitled to inquire.

We were returning one evening from a ramble in the country, when
stopping to ask a drink at a wayside inn, we found a party of soldiers
in possession of the only room, where they were regaling themselves with
wine; while a miserable-looking object, bound with his arms behind his
back, sat pale and woe-begone in one corner of the apartment, his eyes
fixed on the floor, and the tears slowly stealing along his cheeks.

'What is it?' asked I of the landlord, as I peeped in at the half-open
door.

'A deserter, sir----''

The word was scarcely spoken when the colonel let fall the cup he held
in his hand, and leaned, almost fainting, against the wall.

'Let us move on,' said he, in a voice scarcely articulate, while the
sickness of death seemed to work in his features.

'You are ill,' said I; 'we had better wait----'

'No, not here--not here,' repeated he anxiously; 'in a moment I shall be
well again--lend me your arm.'

We walked on, at first slowly, for with each step he tottered like one
after weeks of illness; at last he rallied, and we reached Cassel in
about an hour's time, during which he spoke but once or twice. 'I must
bid you a good-night here,' said he, as we entered the inn; 'I feel but
poorly, and shall hasten to bed.' So saying, and without waiting for a
word on my part, he squeezed my hand affectionately, and left me.

It was not in my power to dismiss from my mind a number of gloomy
suspicions regarding the baron, as I slowly wended my way to my room.
The upper