“I thought so. These simple tastes are the inheritance a mother gives her child; and happily they survive every change of fortune.”
I sighed heavily as she spoke, for thus accidentally was touched the weakest chord of my heart.
“And, better still,” resumed she, “they are the links that unite us to the past, that bind the heart of manhood to infancy, that can bring down pride and haughtiness, and call forth guileless affection and childlike faith.”
“They are happy,”' said I, musing, “who can mingle such early memories with the present.”
“And who cannot?” interrupted she, rapidly. “Who has not felt the love of parents,—the halo of a home? Old as I am, even I can recall the little walks I trod in infancy, and the hand that used to guide me. I can bring up the very tones of that voice which vibrated on my heart as they spoke my name. But how much happier they to whom these memories are linked with tokens of present affection, and who, in their manhood's joys, can feel a father's or a mother's love!”
“I was left an orphan when a mere child,” said I, as though the observation had been specially addressed to me.
“But you have brothers,—sisters, perhaps.”
I shook my head. “A brother, indeed; but we have never met since we were children.”
“And yet your country has not suffered the dreadful convulsion of ours; no social wreck has scattered those who once lived in close affection together. It is sad when such ties are broken. You came early to France, I think you told me?”
“Yes, Madame. When a mere child my heart conceived a kind of devotion to the Emperor: his fame, his great exploits, seemed something more than human,—filled every thought of my brain; and to be a soldier,his soldier, was the limit of my ambition. I fancied, too, that the cause he asserted was that of freedom; that liberty, universal liberty, was the watchword that led to victory.”