for your father and mother.' And my country is
in danger; an enemy attacks it, while I--I turn cups and balls!

"This thought tormented me so much all night that the next day I returned
to Vincennes to announce to the lieutenant that I had just enlisted, and
was going off to the frontier. The brave man pressed upon me his cross of
St. Louis, and I went away as proud as an ambassador.

"That is how, neighbor, I became a volunteer under the Republic before I
had cut my wisdom teeth."

All this was told quietly, and in the cheerful spirit of him who looks
upon an accomplished duty neither as a merit nor a grievance.

While he spoke, Father Chaufour grew animated, not on account of himself,
but of the general subject. Evidently that which occupied him in the
drama of life was not his own part, but the drama itself.

This sort of disinterestedness touched me. I prolonged my visit, and
showed myself as frank as possible, in order to win his confidence in
return. In an hour's time he knew my position and my habits; I was on the
footing of an old acquaintance.

I even confessed the ill-humor the light of his lamp put me into a short
time before. He took what I said with the touching cheerfulness which
comes from a heart in the right place, and which looks upon everything on
the good side. He neither spoke to me of the necessity which obliged him
to work while I could sleep, nor of the deprivations of the old soldier
compared to the luxury of the young clerk; he only struck his forehead,
accused himself of thoughtlessness, and promised to put list round his
door!

O great and beautiful soul! with whom nothing turns to bitterness, and
who art peremptory only in duty and benevolence!

October 15th.--This morning I was looking at a little engraving I had
framed myself, and hung over my writing-table; it is a design of
Gavarni's; in which, in a grave mood, he has represented a veteran and a
conscript.

By often contemplating these two figures, so different in expression, and
so true to life, both have become living in my eyes; I have seen them
move, I have heard them speak; the picture has become a real scene, at
which I am present as spectator.

The veteran advances slowly, his hand leaning on the shoulder of the
young soldier. His eyes, closed for ever, no longer perceive the sun
shining through the flowering chestnut-trees. In the place of his right
arm hangs an empty sleeve, and he walks with a wooden leg, the sound