hard
fighting at Montereau and Chalons needed but a few days more of
prosperity to have confirmed, but who saw their best hopes decline as
the sun of the Emperor's glory descended?

"What rewards were given even to many of the more distinguished, but
whose principles were known to be little in accordance with the new
order of things? What of Pajol, who captured a Dutch fleet with his
cavalry squadrons;--ay! charged the three-deckers as they lay ice-locked
in the Scheldt, dismounted half of his force and boarded them, as in a
sea-fight? Poor Pajol! he died the other day, at eighty-three or four,
followed to the grave by the comrades he had fought and marched beside,
but with no honours to his memory from the King or his government. No,
sir, believe me, the present people never liked the Buonapartists; the
sad contrasts presented by all their attempts at military renown with
those glorious spectacles of the Empire were little flattering to them."

"Then you evidently think Soult and some others owe their present
favour, less to the eminence of their services than to the plasticity of
their principles?"

"Who ever thought Soult a great general?" said he, abruptly answering my
question by this transition. "A great military organizer, certainly--the
best head for the administration of an army, or the Emperor's staff--but
nothing more. His capacity as a tactician was always third rate."

I could not help acknowledging that such was the opinion of our own
great captain, who has avowed that he regarded Massena as the most
accomplished and scientific general to whom he was ever opposed.

"And Massena's daughter," cried the veteran indignantly, "lives now
in the humblest poverty--the wife of a very poor man, who cultivates a
little garden near Brussels, where _femmes de chambre_ are sent to buy
bouquets for their mistresses! The daughter of a _Marechal de France_,
a title once that Kings loved to add to their royalty, as men love to
ennoble station by evidences of high personal desert!"

"How little fidelity, however, did these men shew to him who had made
them thus great! how numerous were the desertions!--how rapid too!"

"Yes, there was an epidemic of treason at that time in France, just as
you have seen at different epochs, here, other epidemics prevail: in
the Revolution the passion was for the guillotine; then came the lust of
military glory--that suited us best, and lasted longest; we indulged
in it for twenty years