abnegation of self. During the fourteen years I have lived in the army, it is only there, and above all in the poor and despised ranks of the infantry, that I have found those men of an antique stamp carrying out the feeling of duty to all its possible consequences; knowing neither remorse for obedience, nor shame for poverty; simple in their manners, and in their speech; proud of the glory of the nation, but careless of their own; shutting themselves up cheerfully in their own obscurity, to divide with the unfortunate the black bread they pay for with their blood.
I remained long ignorant of what had become of my poor chef-de-bataillon, especially as he had not told me his name, and I had not asked him. One day, however, at a coffee-house, I believe in 1825, an old captain of infantry to whom I was describing him, as we were waiting for parade, said:
"Eh, pardieu, I knew that poor devil! He was a brave fellow,—he came down by a ball at Waterloo. And he had, in fact, left a crazy girl with the baggage, whom we took to the hospital at Amiens, as we went to the army of the Loire, and who died there raving mad, at the end of three days."
"I can readily imagine it," said I, "she had lost her foster-father."
