these little ones without having seen them, solely through the
sympathy so well described by Charlet, which makes a soldier the
father of every child. The eldest, named Bettina Caroline, was born in
1805; the other, Marie Modeste, in 1808. The unfortunate
lieutenant-colonel, long without tidings of these cherished darlings,
was sent, at the peace of 1814, across Russia and Prussia on foot,
accompanied by the lieutenant. No difference of epaulets could count
between the two friends, who reached Frankfort just as Napoleon was
disembarking at Cannes.

Charles found his wife in Frankfort, in mourning for her father, who
had always idolized her and tried to keep a smile upon her lips, even
by his dying bed. Old Wallenrod was unable to survive the disasters of
the Empire. At seventy years of age he speculated in cottons, relying
on the genius of Napoleon without comprehending that genius is quite
as often beyond as at the bottom of current events. The old man had
purchased nearly as many bales of cotton as the Emperor had lost men
during his magnificent campaign in France. "I tie in goddon," said the
father to the daughter, a father of the Goriot type, striving to quiet
a grief which distressed him. "I owe no mann anything--" and he died,
still trying to speak to his daughter in the language that she loved.

Thankful to have saved his wife and daughters from the general wreck,
Charles Mignon returned to Paris, where the Emperor made him
lieutenant-colonel in the cuirassiers of the Guard and commander of
the Legion of honor. The colonel dreamed of being count and general
after the first victory. Alas! that hope was quenched in the blood of
Waterloo. The colonel, slightly wounded, retired to the Loire, and
left Tours before the disbandment of the army.