commissioned officers of the Regiment of the Guard quartered at
Courbevoie dancing with the pretty laundresses belonging to the village,
I tried hard to force my sisters to join me in imitating the particular
style of dance I had seen them perform. I have heard it said that my
choregraphic performance was fairly successful, but there my fancy for
the military career ended. General Drouot went back to Nancy; I did not
see him again, and I soon fell under other and more lasting influences.

Among my father's aides-de-camp there was a young cavalry lieutenant-
colonel, the Comte d'Houdetot, who had begun life as a midshipman. He
was a very clever man, and one of the most delightful story-tellers
imaginable. By birth a creole, from the Mauritius, he and his family had
happened to come back to Europe on board the corvette La Regeneree,
commanded by that same Admiral Villaumetz, our neighbour and constant
visitor in the billiard-room. At the time of the voyage D'Houdetot was a
baby in arms, and in an action between the Regeneree and the English, at
the Loos Islands, his wet nurse was cut in two by a round shot, which
gave rise to a saying of his, "I have more right to promotion than
anybody. Lots of people have had horses killed under them, but I'm the
only man in the French army that ever had a woman killed under him."

Mutually attracted by this common memory, the former middy and the old
admiral used to spend their evenings relating their adventures to each
other and their stories, which had begun by interesting, ended by
fascinating me. It was worth while to hear D'Houdetot tell about the
battle of Trafalgar, at which he had been present as a midshipman on
board the Algesiras, commanded by his uncle Admiral Magon, how, as he
lay on the poop, with both his legs broken by the bursting of a shell,
he saw his uncle the admiral receive his death-blow, at the very moment
when, wounded already, and his hat and wig carried away by a shot, he