"What's your name?"

"Pierre Louis Bougainville."

"Bougainville! Bougainville! It sounds noble and also historical. I've
read of it, but I don't recall where."

The little Frenchman drew himself up, and his black eyes glittered.

"There is a legend among us that it was noble once," he said, "but we
don't know when. I feel within me the spirit to make it great again.
There was a time when the mighty Napoleon said that every soldier
carried a marshal's baton in his knapsack. Perhaps that time has come
again. And the great emperor was a little man like me."

John began to laugh and then he stopped suddenly. Pierre Louis
Bougainville, so small and so insignificant, was not looking at him. He
was looking over and beyond him, dreaming perhaps of a glittering
future. The funny little red cap with the tassel might shelter a great
brain. Respect took the place of the wish to laugh.

"Monsieur Bougainville," he said in his excellent French, "my name is
John Scott. I am from America, but I am serving in the allied
Franco-British army. My heart like yours beats for France."

"Then, Monsieur Jean, you and I are brothers," said the little man, his
eyes still gleaming. "It may be that we shall fight side by side in the
hour of victory. But you will take me into the lantern will you not?
Father Pelletier does not know, as you do, that I'm going to be a great