sometimes for kings, sometimes for pretenders. I was out with
Garibaldi, because I believed he would give a republic to Italy; but I
fought against the republic of Mexico, because its people were rotten
and corrupt, and I believed that the emperor would rule them honestly
and well. I have always chosen my own side, the one which seemed to me
promised the most good; and yet, after thirty years, I am where you
see me to-night. I am an old man without a country, I belong to no
political party, I have no family, I have no home. I have travelled
over all the world looking for that country which was governed for the
greater good of the greater number, and I have fought only for those
men who promised to govern unselfishly and as the servants of the
people. But when the fighting was over, and they were safe in power,
they had no use for me nor my advice. They laughed, and called me a
visionary and a dreamer. 'You are no statesman, General,' they would
say to me. 'Your line is the fighting-line. Go back to it.' And yet,
when I think of how the others have used their power, I believe that I
could have ruled the people as well, and yet given them more freedom,
and made more of them more happy."

The moon rose over the camp, and the night grew chill; but still we
sat, he talking and I listening as I had used to listen when I sat at
my grandfather's knee and he told me tales of war and warriors. They
brought us coffee and food, and we ate with an ammunition-box for a
table, he still talking and I eager to ask questions, and yet fearful
of interrupting him. He told of great battles which had changed the
history of Europe, of secret expeditions which had never been recorded
even in his own diary, of revolutions which after months of
preparation had burst forth and had been crushed between sunset and
sunrise; of emperors, kings, patriots, and charlatans. There was
nothing that I had wished to do, and that I had imagined myself doing,