“Yes; Lasalle is off already; Dorsenne starts in two hours; and we three rendezvous at Coblentz. I wished much to see you,” continued he, after a minute's pause; “but I could not get away from Versailles even for a day. Tell me, have you got a letter I wrote to you when at Mayence? I mean, is it still in existence?”
“Yes, sir,” said I, somewhat astonished at the question.
“I wrote it hurriedly,” added he, with something of confusion in his manner; “do let me see it.”
I unlocked my writing-desk at once, and handed him his own letter. He opened it hastily, and having thrown his eyes speedily across it, said, and in a voice far more at ease than before,—
“That will do. I feared lest perhaps—But no matter; this is better than I thought.”
With this he gave the letter back into my hands, and appeared for some moments engaged in deep thought; then, with a voice and manner which showed a different channel was given to his thoughts, he said,—
“The game has opened; the Austrians have invaded Bavaria. The whole disposable force of France is on the march,—a hurried movement; but so it is. Napoleon always strikes like his own emblem, the eagle.”
“True, sir; but even that serves to heighten the chivalrous feeling of the soldier, when the sword springs from the scabbard at the call of honor, and is not drawn slowly forth at the whispered counsel of some wily diplomat.”
He smiled half-mournfully at the remark, or at my impetuosity in making it, as he said:—
“My dear boy, never flatter yourself that the cause of any war can enter into the calculation of the soldier. The liberty he fights for is often the rankest tyranny; the patriotism he defends, the veriest oppression. Play the game as though the stake were but your own ambition, if you would play it manfully. As for me, I buckle on the harness for the last time, come what will of it. The Emperor feels, and justly feels, indignant that many of the older officers have declined the service by which alone they were elevated to rank, and wealth, and honor. It was not, then, at the moment when he distinguished me by an unsought promotion,—still more, conferred a personal favor on me, that I could ask leave to retire from the army.”