line, hoping to metamorphose them finally into generals,--barring
those whom the bullets might take off. But the emperor's calculation
was scarcely fulfilled, except in the matter of the bullets. This
regiment, often decimated but always the same in character, acquired a
great reputation for valor in the field and for wickedness in private
life. At the siege of Tarragona it lost its celebrated hero, Bianchi,
the man who, during the campaign, had wagered that he would eat the
heart of a Spanish sentinel, and did eat it. Though Bianchi was the
prince of the devils incarnate to whom the regiment owed its dual
reputation, he had, nevertheless, that sort of chivalrous honor which
excuses, in the army, the worst excesses. In a word, he would have
been, at an earlier period, an admirable pirate. A few days before his
death he distinguished himself by a daring action which the marechal
wished to reward. Bianchi refused rank, pension, and additional
decoration, asking, for sole recompense, the favor of being the first
to mount the breach at the assault on Tarragona. The marechal granted
the request and then forgot his promise; but Bianchi forced him to
remember Bianchi. The enraged hero was the first to plant our flag on
the wall, where he was shot by a monk.

This historical digression was necessary, in order to explain how it
was that the 6th of the line was the regiment to enter Tarragona, and
why the disorder and confusion, natural enough in a city taken by
storm, degenerated for a time into a slight pillage.

This regiment possessed two officers, not at all remarkable among
these men of iron, who played, nevertheless, in the history we shall
now relate, a somewhat important part.

The first, a captain in the quartermaster's department, an officer