ose unfortunate beings, and I heard a still more
unhappy tale--shall I call it more unhappy? They had perished by the
cannon-shot, which now poured into the city day and night, or had been
buried in the ruins of some of the buildings, which were now constantly
falling under the heaviest bombardment in the annals of war. Of those
scenes I say no more. If the siege of a great fortress is the most
trying of all hazards to the soldier without, what must it be to the
wretches within? Valenciennes was once the centre of the lace
manufactories of France. The war had destroyed them at once. The
proprietors had fled, the thousands of young and old employed in those
delicate and beautiful productions, had fled too, or remained only to
perish of famine. A city of twenty thousand of the most ingenious
artists was turning day by day into a vast cemetery. As I tossed on my
mattress hour after hour, and heard the roar of the successive
batteries, shuddered at the fall of the shells, and was tortured by the
cries of the crowd flying from the explosions all night long--I gave the
deepest curses of my spirit to the passion for glory. It is true, that
nations must defend themselves; the soldier is a protector to the
industry, the wealth, and the happiness of the country. I am no disciple
of the theory, which, disclaiming the first instinct of nature,
self-preservation, invites injury by weakness, and creates war by
impunity; but the human race ought to outlaw the man who dares to dream
of conquest, and builds his name in the blood of man.

On my capture, one of my first wishes had been to acquaint my regiment
with the circumstances of my misfortune, and to relieve my friends of
their anxiety for the fate of a brother officer. But this object, which,
in the older days of continental campaigning, would have been acceded to
with a bow and a compliment by Monsiegneur le Comte, or Son Altesse
Royale, the governor, was sturdily refused by the colonel in charge of
the hospital--a firm Republican, and the son of a cobbler, who, swearing
by the Goddess of Reason, threatened to hang over the gate the first man
who dared to bring him another such proposal. I next sent my application
to the commandant, a brave old soldier, who had served in the royal
armies, and had the feelings of better times; but it was probably
intercepted, for no answer came. This added deeply to my chagrin. My
absence must give rise to conjecture; my fall had been unseen even by