blic weakness or personal severity."

I proposed to accompany him, while we were on the march, and to pledge
myself for his honour when we arrived at quarters.

"Generously offered," was the reply. "But my duty, in the first
instance, prohibits his remaining in the camp; and in the next, my
feelings for himself would spare a man who has commanded the enemy's
troops, the sight of that actual collision which must immediately take
place. We attack the defiles of the Argonne to-morrow."

He entered the tent, wrote a few lines, and returned to me.

"M. Lafayette must consider himself as a prisoner; but as my wish is
to treat him with honour, I must beg of you, M. Marston, to take
charge of him for the time. Your offer has relieved me from an
embarrassment; and I shall take care to make honourable mention of
your conduct in this instance, as in all others, to both the courts of
Berlin and St James's. The marquis must be sent to Berlin, and I must
request that you will be ready to set out with him this evening."

The sound was a thunder-stoke. "This evening!" when the decisive
action of the war was to be fought next morning. "To Berlin!" when all
my gallant friends were to be on the march to Paris. Impossible! I
retracted my offer at once. But the prince, not accustomed to be
resisted, held his purpose firmly; representing that, as the French
general was actually _my_ prisoner, and as _my_ court was equally
interested with those of the Allied powers, in preventing his return
to embroil France, "it was my duty, as her commissioner, to see that
the measure was effectively performed." But the appearance of leaving
the army, on the very eve of important service, was not to be argued,
or even commanded, away. The duke was equally inflexible, though his
sentences were perhaps shorter than mine; and I finally left his
presence, declaring, that if the request were persisted in, I should
throw up my commission at once, volunteer as a common trooper into the
first squadron which would admit me, and then, his highness, might, of
course, order me wherever he pleased."

A stately smile was the answer to this tirade. I bowed, and retired.

Within a hundred yards I met my two friends, Varnhorst and Guiscard,
and poured out my whole catalogue of wrongs at once. Varnhorst shared
my indignation, fiercely pulled his thick mustaches, and muttered some
phrases about oppression, martinetism, and other dangerous topics,
which fortunately were