Cossacks bivouac in the forest of Fontainebleau. Staff-officers hurry
onward with the news that the Emperor is approaching; the victorious
army which had subdued Blucher is on the march, reinforced by the
veteran cavalry of Spain and the tried legions of the Peninsula. They
halt, and form in battle. The Allies arrest their steps at Nangis, and
again are beaten: Nangis becomes another name of glory to the ears of
Frenchmen.

Let me rest one instant in this rapid recital of a week whose great
deeds not even Napoleon's life can show the equal of,--the last flash of
the lamp of glory ere it darkened forever.

Three days had elapsed from the sad hour in which I laid my dearest
friend in his grave, ere I opened the locket I had taken from his
bosom. The wild work of war mingled its mad excitement in my brain with
thoughts of deep sorrow; and I lived in a kind of fevered dream, and
hurried from the affliction which beset me into the torrent of danger.

The gambler who cares not to win rarely loses, so he that seeks death
in battle comes unscathed through every danger. Each day I threw myself
headlong into some post where escape seemed scarcely possible; but
recklessness has its own armor of safety. On the field of Montmirail I
was reported to the Emperor; and for an attack on the Austrian rearguard
at Melun made colonel of a cuirassier regiment on the field of battle.
Such promotions rained on every side: hundreds were falling each day;
many regiments were commanded by officers of twenty-three or twenty-four
years of age. Few expected to carry their new epaulettes beyond the
engagement they gained them in; none believed the Empire itself could
survive the struggle. Each played for a mighty stake; few cared to
outlive the game itself. The Emperor showered down favors on the heads
which each battlefield laid low.

It was on the return from Melun I first opened the locket, which I
continued to wear around my neck. In the full expansion of a momentary
triumph to see myself at the head of a regiment, I thought of him who
would have participated in my pride. I was sitting in the doorway of a
little cabaret on the roadside, my squadrons picketed around me, for
a brief halt; and as my thoughts recurred to the brave D'Auvergne, I
withdrew the locket from my bosom. It was a small oval case of gold,
opening by a spring. I touched this, and as I did so, the locket sprang
open, and displayed before me a miniature of Marie de Meudon. Y