heart beats faster and the blood tingles in my veins when I think of that
time, so full of excitement, adventure, and glory--the forcing of the
Pyrenees, the invasion of France, the battles of Bayonne, Orthes, and
Toulouse, and the march to Paris.

But as I am not relating a history of the war, I shall mention only one
incident in which I was concerned at this period--an incident that brought
me in contact with a man who was destined to exercise a fateful influence
on my career.

It occurred after the battle of Vittoria. The French were making for the
Pyrenees, laden with the loot of a kingdom and encumbered with a motley
crowd of non-combatants--the wives and families of French officers, fair
señoritas flying with their lovers, and traitorous Spaniards, who, by
taking sides with the invaders, had exposed themselves to the vengeance of
the patriots. So overwhelming was the defeat of the French, that they were
forced to abandon nearly the whole of their plunder and the greater part
of their baggage, and leave the fugitives and camp-followers to their
fate.

Never was witnessed so strange a sight as the valley of Vittoria presented
at the close of that eventful day. The broken remains of the French army
hurrying toward the Pamplona road, eighty pieces of artillery, served with
frantic haste, covering their retreat; thousands of wagons and carriages
jammed together and unable to move; the red-coated infantry of England,
marching steadily across the plain; the boom of the cannon, the rattle of
musketry, the scream of women as the bullets whistled through the air and
shells burst over their heads--all this made up a scene, dramatic and
picturesque, it is true, yet full of dire confusion and Dantesque horror;
for death had reaped a rich harvest, and thousands of wounded lay writhing