and they had not the weight for the gun-teams.

However, they were the only four horses, alive or dead, in the
whole town, so it was not to be expected that the people would
know any better. They wept bitterly when they were sent away,
and ten French soldiers were found floating in the canals that
night. As a punishment for these murders a great many more of
their pictures were sent away, and the soldiers took to breaking
the statues and firing their muskets at the stained-glass
windows.

This made the people furious, and there was very bad feeling in
the town. Many officers and men disappeared during that winter,
and even their bodies were never found.

For myself I had plenty to do, and I never found the time heavy
on my hands. In every country it has been my custom to try to
learn the language. For this reason I always look round for some
lady who will be kind enough to teach it to me, and then we
practise it together. This is the most interesting way of
picking it up, and before I was thirty I could speak nearly every
tongue in Europe; but it must be confessed that what you learn is
not of much use for the ordinary purposes of life. My business,
for example, has usually been with soldiers and peasants, and
what advantage is it to be able to say to them that I love only
them, and that I will come back when the wars are over?

Never have I had so sweet a teacher as in Venice. Lucia was her
first name, and her second--but a gentleman forgets second names.
I can say this with all discretion, that she was of one of the