half civil, half military, was considered, in soldier phrase, to be
fighting his own battle. He pretended bravery, boasted loudly of
belonging to the 6th of the line, twirled his moustache with the air
of a man who was ready to demolish everything; but his brother
officers did not esteem him. The fortune he possessed made him
cautious. He was nicknamed, for two reasons, "captain of crows." In
the first place, he could smell powder a league off, and took wing at
the sound of a musket; secondly, the nickname was based on an innocent
military pun, which his position in the regiment warranted. Captain
Montefiore, of the illustrious Montefiore family of Milan (though the
laws of the Kingdom of Italy forbade him to bear his title in the
French service) was one of the handsomest men in the army. This beauty
may have been among the secret causes of his prudence on fighting
days. A wound which might have injured his nose, cleft his forehead,
or scarred his cheek, would have destroyed one of the most beautiful
Italian faces which a woman ever dreamed of in all its delicate
proportions. This face, not unlike the type which Girodet has given to
the dying young Turk, in the "Revolt at Cairo," was instinct with that
melancholy by which all women are more or less duped.

The Marquis de Montefiore possessed an entailed property, but his
income was mortgaged for a number of years to pay off the costs of
certain Italian escapades which are inconceivable in Paris. He had
ruined himself in supporting a theatre at Milan in order to force upon
a public a very inferior prima donna, whom he was said to love madly.
A fine future was therefore before him, and he did not care to risk it
for the paltry distinction of a bit of red ribbon. He was not a brave
man, but he was certainly a philosopher; and he had precedents, if we
may use so parliamentary an expression. Did not Philip the Second
register a vow after the battle of Saint Quentin that never again