l diseases, and I believe the least understood.
I have been subject to it for some years, and as there is no remedy,
and as any access of it may prove fatal, life is held on but poor
conditions----'

He paused for a second or two, then resumed, but with a manner of
increased excitement.

'They will shoot him! Yes, I have heard it all. It's the second time
he has deserted; there is not a chance left him. I must leave this by
daybreak--I must get me far away before to-morrow evening; there would
not come a stir, the slightest sound, but I should fancy I heard the
fusilade.'

I saw now clearly that the deserter's fate had made the impression which
brought on the attack; and although my curiosity to learn the origin of
so powerful a sensibility was greater than ever, I would willingly have
sacrificed it to calming his mind, and inducing thoughts of less
violent excitement. But he continued, speaking with a thick and hurried
utterance--

'I was senior lieutenant of the Carabiniers de la Garde at eighteen.
We were quartered at Strasbourg; more than half of the regiment were my
countrymen, some from the very village where I was born. One there was,
a lad of sixteen, my schoolfellow and companion when a boy; he was
the only child of a widow whose husband had fallen in the wars of the
Revolution. When he was drawn in the conscription, no less than seven
others presented themselves to go in his stead; but old Girardon, who
commanded the brigade, simply returned for answer, "Such brave men are
worthy to serve France; let them all be enrolled," and they were so.
A week afterwards Louis my schoolfellow deserted. He swam the Rhine at
Kehl, and the same evening reached his mother's cottage. He was scarcely
an hour at home when a party of his own regiment captured him; he was
brought back to Strasbourg, tried by torchlight, and condemned to death.

'The officer who commanded the party for his execution fainted when
the prisoner was led out; the men, horror-struck at the circumstance,
grounded their arms and refused to fire. Girardon was on the ground in
an instant; he galloped up to the youth who knelt there with his arms
bound behind him, and drawing a pistol from his holster, placed the
muzzle on his forehead, and shot him dead! The men were sent back to
the barracks, and by a general order of the same day were drafted into
different regiments throughout the army; the officer was degraded to the
ranks--it was myself.'

It was