rdinary men I ever saw among all the mixed collection of men it
has been my lot to meet. He was an Italian. Now, whenever human nature
is truly fine in the lands of the South, it is really sublime. I do not
know whether you have ever observed the extreme fairness of Italians
when they are fair. It is exquisite, especially under an artificial
light. When I read the fantastical portrait of Colonel Oudet sketched
by Charles Nodier, I found my own sensations in every one of his elegant
phrases. Italian, then, as were most of the officers of his regiment,
which had, in fact, been borrowed by the Emperor from Eugene's army,
my colonel was a tall man, at least eight or nine inches above the
standard, and was admirably proportioned--a little stout perhaps, but
prodigiously powerful, active, and clean-limbed as a greyhound. His
black hair in abundant curls showed up his complexion, as white as a
woman's; he had small hands, a shapely foot, a pleasant mouth, and
an aquiline nose delicately formed, of which the tip used to become
naturally pinched and white whenever he was angry, as happened often.
His irascibility was so far beyond belief that I will tell you nothing
about it; you will have the opportunity of judging of it. No one could
be calm in his presence. I alone, perhaps, was not afraid of him; he had
indeed taken such a singular fancy to me that he thought everything I
did right. When he was in a rage his brow was knit and the muscles of
the middle of his forehead set in a delta, or, to be more explicit, in
Redgauntlet's horseshoe. This mark was, perhaps, even more terrifying
than the magnetic flashes of his blue eyes. His whole frame quivered,
and his strength, great as it was in his normal state, became almost
unbounded.

"He spoke with a strong guttural roll. His voice, at least as powerful
as that of Charles Nordier's Oudet, threw an incredible fulness of
tone into the syllable or the consonant in which this burr was sounded.
Though this faulty pronunciation was at times a grace, when commanding
his men, or when he was excited, you cannot imagine, unless you had
heard it, what force was expressed by this accent, which at Paris is so
common. When the Colonel was quiescent, his blue eyes were angelically
sweet, and his smooth brow had a most charming expression. On parade,
or with the army of Italy, not a man could compare with him. Indeed,
d'Orsay himself, the handsome d'Orsay, was eclipsed by our colonel on
the occasi