A quiet smile spread over Bourmont's face, as he bowed and took Macleod's letter; while Pepe, like a cowed bravo, bit his white lips and glared at me with ill-concealed malice and animosity: but I continued to help myself with perfect composure.
Exasperated by this cutting contempt—"By heaven and hell!" he exclaimed, "were it not that I must hold sacred the white flag you carry—mille baionettes!—I would cut you in two!" and starting from the table, Pepe retired into a recess of the window; where he affected to observe the saucy Amphion, which was riding with her broadside to the shore, the union-jack waving from her mizen peak—a striking feature in the view, but ill-calculated to soothe the wrath of the irritated Gaul. I could read the history of this repulsive man in the coarse features and strong lines of his sunburnt visage.
The French army at that time possessed many such spirits. Raised from the dregs of the people during the anarchy which followed the Revolution, many of the actors in those frightful tragedies and massacres that disgrace the nation became—rather by the force of circumstances than their own deserts—commanders in the armies of Buonaparte. Savage and black-hearted, furious and sour republicans, thus found themselves marching beneath the banners of an emperor; and some of them obtaining honours in that profession which numbers all the kings and princes of Europe among its members. But the true Parisian rabble, without one spark of the generous spirit of the soldier, were destitute of that chivalry which distinguished the old French armies in the time of the Bourbons. A knowledge of the men they fought against, caused our troops to regard the soldiers of the Revolution with equal detestation and contempt: this latter feeling, however, soon became changed when they encountered them as the army of Napoleon; who restored France to that honourable place among the kingdoms of Europe, from which she fell in 1792. The sanguinary rabble who hailed with yells of triumph the axe as it descended on the neck of the queenly Marie Antoinette—who clove in two the head of the beautiful Princess Lamballe, and dragged her naked body for days about the kennels of Paris, were forgotten when contemplating the glories of Napoleon, the long succession of his victories, the devotion of his soldiers, and the chivalric enthusiasm of the old guard. But to proceed.
De Bourmont looked over Macleod's letter in various ways, but could make nothing of it; upon which he asked me to translate it. So far as I can remember, it ran thus:—
"Trenches before Crotona, July 1806.
"SIR,—Further resistance on your part being now in vain, I give you until sunset to send away all the women and children; after which, if the citadel be not surrendered, your garrison shall be buried in its ruins.
"I have the honour to be, &c. &c,
"PETER MACLEOD, Lieut.-Col.
"Commanding Ross-shire Buffs.
"Lieut.-Col. DE BOURMONT,