Page:Ernestus Berchtold or the Modern Œdipus.djvu/56

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ERNESTUS BERCHTOLD.

our part to assist their fiat. I painted to her the horrors of the exterminating warfare that was carried on, and asserted that it was most likely not the peril of the sword in which she was to partake. In short, I forced her to promise me not to follow, by representing to her the misery Berchtold would undergo, if at once deprived of both of his adopted children. I led her back to the door, and left her in his arms.

It is useless for me to give you an account of this campaign. It is recorded in history with even all the unsuccessful struggles for liberty, as one of those gleamings of that noble spirit in men, which, though generally hidden under the pressure of vice and corruption, at times bursts forth like the volcano’s fire. I was taken prisoner, and could find no means of escaping, till the French, towards the end of June, after the restoration of Rapinat, became more lenient in their treatment of their prisoners, and less care-