recruits whom he had drilled into regular war-dogs, ready to set their
teeth into anything. He brought also a bourgeois guard of honor, a fine
troop, which melted away in battle like butter on a hot gridiron. In
spite of the bold front that we put on, everything went against us;
although the army performed feats of wonderful courage. Then came
regular battles of mountains--nations against nations--at Dresden,
Lutzen, and Bautzen. Don't you ever forget that time, because it was
then that Frenchmen showed how wonderfully heroic they could be. A good
grenadier, in those days, seldom lasted more than six months. We always
won, of course; but there in our rear were the English, stirring up the
nations to take sides against us. But we fought our way through this
pack of nations at last. Wherever Napoleon showed himself, we rushed;
and whenever, on land or sea, he said, "I wish to pass," we passed.

We finally got back to France; and many a poor foot-soldier was braced
up by the air of his native country, notwithstanding the hard times we
had. As for myself, in particular, I may say that it renewed my life.

It then became a question of defending the fatherland--our fair
France--against all Europe. They didn't like our laying down the law to
the Russians, and our driving them back across their borders, so that
they couldn't devour us, as is the custom of the North. Those Northern
peoples are very greedy for the South, or at least that's what I've
heard many generals say. Then Napoleon saw arrayed against him his own
father-in-law, his friends whom he had made kings, and all the
scoundrels whom he had put on thrones. Finally, in pursuance of orders
from high quarters, even Frenchmen, and allies in our own ranks, turned
against us; as at the battle of Leipsic. Common soldiers wouldn't have
been mean enough to do that! Men who called themselves princes broke
their word three times a day.