“'I am ready,' cried the youth, in a voice above the tumult. 'I did not deem I could be grateful to ye for aught, but I am for this.'
“To no purpose did the commissary propose a delay in the sentence; he was unsupported by his colleagues. The passions of the mob rose higher and higher; the thirst for blood, unslaked, became intense and maddening; and they danced in frantic glee around the guillotine, while they chanted one of the demoniac songs of the scaffold.
“In this moment, when the torrent ran in one direction, Alphonse might have escaped all notice, but that the condemned youth turned to embrace him once more before he descended from the people.
“'They are so sorry to separate, it is a shame to part them,' cried a ruffian in the crowd.
“'You forget, Citizen, that this boy is his substitute,' said the commissary, mildly; 'the Republic most not be cheated of its defenders.'
“'Vive la République!' cried the soldiers; and the cry was re-echoed by thousands, while amid their cheers there rose the last faint sigh of an expiring victim.
“The scene was over; the crowd dispersed; and the soldiers marched back to quarters, accompanied by some hundred conscripts, among whom was Alphonse,—a vague, troubled expression betokening that he scarce knew what had happened around him.
“The regiment to which he was appointed was at Toulon, and there I followed him. They were ordered to the north of Italy soon after, and thence to Egypt. Through the battlefields of Mount Tabor and the Pyramids I was ever beside him; on the heights of Austerlitz I stanched his wounds; and I laid him beneath the earth on the field of Auerstadt.”
The old man's voice trembled and became feeble as he finished speaking, and a settled expression of grief clothed his features, which were pale as death.
“I must see Sèvres once more,” said he, after a pause. “I must look on the old houses of the village, and the little gardens, and the venerable church; they will be the only things to greet me there now, but I must gaze on them ere I close my eyes to this world and its cares.”