"The cuirassier is clad in steel;
His massive sword is straight and strong:
But the voltigeur can charge and wheel
With a step,--his bayonet is just as long.

"The artillery-driver must halt his team
If the current be fast or the water deep:
But the voltigeur can swim the stream,
And climb the bank, be it e'er so steep.

"The voltigeur needs no trumpet sound,--
No bugle has he to cheer him on:
Where the fire is hottest, that 's his ground,--
Hurrah for the Faubourg of St. Antoine!"

As they came to the conclusion of this song, they kept up the air
without words, imitating by their voices the roll of the drum in
marching time. Joining the first party I came up with, I asked the
officer in what direction of the field I should find the cuirassier
brigade.

"That I can't tell you, Comrade," said he. "No cavalry have appeared in
our neighborhood, nor are they likely; for all the ground is cut up and
intersected so much they could not act. But our maitre d'armes is the
fellow to tell you. Halloo, Francois! come up here for a moment."

Before I could ask whether this was not my old antagonist at Elchingen,
the individual himself appeared.

"Eh, what?" cried he, as he lifted a piece of firewood from the ground,
and stared me in the face by its light. "Not my friend Burke, eh? By
Jove! so it is."

Our cordial greetings being over, I asked Maitre Francois if he could
give me any intelligence of D'Auvergne's division, or put me in the way
to reach them.

"They're some miles off by this time," said he, coolly. "When I was
below the Plateau de Jena last night, that brigade you speak of
got their orders to push forward to Auerstadt, to support Davoust's
infantry. I mind it well, for they were sorely tired, and had just
picketed their horses, when the orderly came down with the despatch."

"And where does Auerstadt lie?"

"About four leagues to the other side of that tall mountain yonder."

"What, then, shall I do? I am dismounted, to begin with."

"And if you were not, if you had the best horse in the whole brigade,
what would it serve you now, except to pass the day riding between two
battle-fields, and see nothing of either? for we shall have hot work
here, depend upon it. No, no; stay with us. Be a voltigeur for to-day,
and we 'll show you something you 'll not see from your bearskin
saddle."

"But I shall be in a s