nd taken prisoner. But as I learned
that he was the son of a French _literateur_ of some eminence whom I
had met in Paris, and as I had conceived a favourable opinion of the
young soldier's gallantry, I gave him his parole and sent him back to
his family, who, I think, were Provencals. He was unquestionably
spirited and intelligent, and with experience might make either
minister or general; but as he has begun by failure in the one
capacity, it will be our business to show him that he may find success
equally difficult in another. At all events, we have nothing but this
minister-general between us and Notre-Dame. He has taken up a position
on the Argonne ridge in our front. To force it will be but an affair
of three hours. Adieu, gentlemen." He put spurs to his horse, and
galloped to one of the columns which approached with trumpets
sounding, bearing the captured banner of the church tower of Longwy.

The world was now before us, and we enjoyed it to the full. Varnhorst
and I were inseparable, and feasted on the scene, the gaiety, the
oddity of the various characters, which campaigning developes more
than any mode of existence. The simple meal, the noon-rest under a
tree, the songs of our troopers, the dance in the villages, as soon as
the peasantry had discovered that we did not eat women and
children--even the consciousness of a life wholly without care, formed
a delicious state of being. "If this is the life of the Arab," I often
was ready to exclaim, "what folly would it be in him to leave the
wilderness! If the Esquimaux can sleep through one half of the year
and revel through the other, is he not the true philosopher in the
midst of his frost and snow?" Guiscard, who sometimes joined our
party, was now and then moved to smile at our unripe conceptions of
the nature of things. But we laughed at his gravity, and he returned
to pore over the mysteries of that diplomacy which evidently thickened
on him hour by hour. I recollect, however, one of his expressions--"My
friend, you think that all the battle is to be fought in front: I can
assure you that a much more severe battle is to be fought in the rear.
Argonne will be much more easily mastered than the King's closet and
the Aulic Council." We had good reason to remember the oracle.

One morning as, with half a dozen hussars, I was ranging the thickets
on the flank of the advance, with the spirit of an English fox-hunter,
on reaching the summit of a rising ground, I