He has just now left my attic. There no longer passes a single day
without his coming to work by my fire, or my going to sit and talk by his
board.

The old artilleryman has seen much, and likes to tell of it. For twenty
years he was an armed traveller throughout Europe, and he fought without
hatred, for he was possessed by a single thought--the honor of the
national flag! It might have been his superstition, if you will; but it
was, at the same time, his safeguard.

The word FRANCE, which was then resounding so gloriously through the
world, served as a talisman to him against all sorts of temptation. To
have to support a great name may seem a burden to vulgar minds, but it is
an encouragement to vigorous ones.

"I, too, have had many moments," said he to me the other day, "when I
have been tempted to make friends with the devil. War is not precisely
the school for rural virtues. By dint of burning, destroying, and
killing, you grow a little tough as regards your feelings; 'and, when the
bayonet has made you king, the notions of an autocrat come into your head
a little strongly. But at these moments I called to mind that country
which the lieutenant spoke of to me, and I whispered to myself the well-
known phrase, 'Toujours Francais! It has been laughed at since. People
who would make a joke of the death of their mother have turned it into
ridicule, as if the name of our country was not also a noble and a
binding thing. For my part, I shall never forget from how many follies
the title of Frenchman has kept me. When, overcome with fatigue, I have
found myself in the rear of the colors, and when the musketry was
rattling in the front ranks, many a time I heard a voice, which whispered