nantly; and a roar of laughter and applause from the soldiers
greeted his words.

"'Nor I either!' cried I. And thus I became a soldier, never to regret
the day I belted on the knapsack. But here comes the Pere Duclos: I hope
he may not be displeased at your having kept me company. I know well he
loves not such companionship for his pupil--perhaps he has reason."

Alfred did not wait for the priest's arrival, but darted from the spot
and hastened to his room, where, bolting the door, he threw himself upon
his bed and wept bitterly. Who knows if these tears decided not all his
path in life?

That same evening the lieutenant left the chateau; and in about two
months after came a letter, expressing his gratitude for all the
kindness of his host, and withal a present of a gun and a chasseur's
accoutrement for Alfred.. They were very handsome and costly, and he was
never weary of trying them on his shoulder and looking how they became
him; when, in examining one of the pockets for the twentieth time, he
discovered a folded paper: he opened it, and found it was an appointment
for a cadet in the military school of St. Cyr. Alfred de Vitry was
written in pencil where the name should be inscribed, but very faintly,
and so that it required sharp looking to detect the letters. It was
enough, however, for him who read the words: he packed up a little
parcel of clothes, and, with a few francs in his pocket, he set out that
night for Chalons, where he took the _malle_. The third day, when he was
tracked by the Pere, he was already enrolled a cadet, and not all the
interest in France could have removed him against his consent.

I will not dwell on a career which was in no respect different from
that of hundreds of others. Alfred joined the army in the second Italian
campaign--was part of Dessaix's division at Marengo--was wounded at
Aspern, and finally accompanied the Emperor in his terrible march to
Moscow. He saw more service than his promotion seemed to imply, however;
for, after Leipsig, Dresden, Bautzen, he was carried on a litter, with
some other dying comrades, into a little village of Alsace--a lieutenant
of hussars, nothing more.

An hospital, hastily constructed of planks, had been fitted up outside
the village--there were many such, on the road between Strasbourg and
Nancy; and here poor Alfred lay, with many more, their sad fate rendered
still sadder by the daily tidings, which told them that the cause for
which they