If the brilliant glories of the Empire dazzled the mature mind of
age, they wrought into delirium the impulsive brain of youth, whose
impressions do not wait for any aid from the judgment, but burn into the
soul, never to be totally effaced. The early boyhood of those with whom
I was associated had been one of continual excitement. Hardly had the
hasty but eloquent bulletin told the Parisians that the name of another
bloody field was to be inscribed among the victories of France, and the
cannon of the Invalides thundered out their notes of triumph, when again
the mutilated veterans were on duty at their scarcely cooled pieces and
the newswomen in the streets were shrilly proclaiming some new triumph
of the imperial arms. Then came the details, thrilling a warlike people,
and the trophies which symbolized success,--banners torn and stained
in desperate conflict, destined to hang over Christian altars until the
turning current of fortune should drift them back,--parks of artillery
rumbling through the streets, to be melted into statue or triumphal
column,--and, amid the spoils of war, everything most glorious in Art to
fill that wondrous gallery, the like of which the eye of man will never
look upon again. At last, in some short respite of those fighting days,
came back the conquerors themselves, to enjoy a fleeting period of rest
and fame ere they should stiffen on Russian snows, or swell the streams
which bathe the walls of Leipsic, or blacken, with countless dead, the
plains stretching between the Rhine and their own proud capital.

By no portion of the people were these things gathered with such avidity
and regarded with such all-absorbing interest as by the schoolboys of
Paris. Every step of the "Grand Army" was watched with deep solicitude
and commented upon with no doubtful criticism. They made themselves
acquainted with the relative merit of each division, and could tell
which arm of the service most contributed to the result of any
particular battle. They collected information from all sources,--from