senseless."

Then he took me in his arms and pressed me to him with all his
strength.

"You are the last man, the last friend to whom I can show my soul. You
will be set at liberty, you will see your mother! I don't know whether
you are rich or poor, but no matter! you are all the world to me. They
won't fight always, 'ceux-ci.' Well, when there's peace, will you go
to Beauvais? If my mother has survived the fatal news of my death, you
will find her there. Say to her the comforting words, 'He was
innocent!' She will believe you. I am going to write to her; but you
must take her my last look; you must tell her that you were the last
man whose hand I pressed. Oh, she'll love you, the poor woman! you, my
last friend. Here," he said, after a moment's silence, during which he
was overcome by the weight of his recollections, "all, officers and
soldiers, are unknown to me; I am an object of horror to them. If it
were not for you my innocence would be a secret between God and
myself."

I swore to sacredly fulfil his last wishes. My words, the emotion I
showed touched him. Soon after that the soldiers came to take him
again before the council of war. He was condemned to death. I am
ignorant of the formalities that followed or accompanied this
judgment, nor do I know whether the young surgeon defended his life or
not; but he expected to be executed on the following day, and he spent
the night in writing to his mother.

"We shall both be free to-day," he said, smiling, when I went to see
him the next morning. "I am told that the general has signed your