In the course of thirty years they
were seen on his breast only twice--at an auspicious marriage in the
family and at the funeral of an old friend. That the wedding which was
thus honoured was not the wedding of my mother I learned only late in
life, too late to bear a grudge against Mr. Nicholas B., who made amends
at my birth by a long letter of congratulation containing the following
prophecy: "He will see better times." Even in his embittered heart there
lived a hope. But he was not a true prophet.

He was a man of strange contradictions. Living for many years in his
brother's house, the home of many children, a house full of life, of
animation, noisy with a constant coming and going of many guests, he
kept his habits of solitude and silence. Considered as obstinately
secretive in all his purposes, he was in reality the victim of a most
painful irresolution in all matters of civil life. Under his taciturn,
phlegmatic behaviour was hidden a faculty of short-lived passionate
anger. I suspect he had no talent for narrative; but it seemed to afford
him sombre satisfaction to declare that he was the last man to ride over
the bridge of the river Elster after the battle of Leipsic. Lest some
construction favourable to his valour should be put on the fact he
condescended to explain how it came to pass. It seems that shortly after
the retreat began he was sent back to the town where some divisions
of the French Army (and amongst them the Polish corps of Prince Joseph
Poniatowski), jammed hopelessly in the streets, were being simply
exterminated by the troops of the Allied Powers. When asked what it was
like in there Mr. Nicholas B. muttered the only word "Shambles." Having
delivered his message to the Prince he hastened away at once to render
an account of his mission to the superior who had sent him. By that time
the advance of the enemy had enveloped the town, and he was shot at from
houses and chased all the way to the river bank by a disorderly mob of
Austrian Dragoons and Prussian Hussars. The bridge had been mined
early in the morning and his opinion was that the sight of the horsemen
converging from many sides in the pursuit of his person alarmed the
officer in command of the sappers and caused the premature firing of the
charges. He had not gone more than 200 yards on the other side when he
heard the sound of the fatal explosions. Mr. Nicholas B. concluded
his bald narrative with the word "Imbecile" uttered with the u