"Ay, indeed, your highness, for God is with us."
"Bravely spoken," said the emperor, gazing with visible satisfaction at the wrinkled face and snow-white beard of the old cuirassier.
The Duke of Lorraine signed to him to advance. "Your majesty," said he to Leopold, "allow me to present one of your bravest soldiers, Christopher III. In all the army there is not a man as old as his youngest son, and I venture to say that he is the oldest man in Europe under arms."
"That is a broad assertion," replied Leopold. "How old may you be,
Christopher III?"
"Last Thursday I was a hundred and nine years old, please your imperial majesty," said Christopher, bowing to his saddle-bow.
"A hundred and nine years old!" cried Leopold, incredulously. "Nay— that is impossible. No man of that age could sit a horse or carry a sword as you do."
"Your majesty, it is said in Holy Writ, that, when our fore-fathers were five hundred years old, they were young and lusty; and I can assure my emperor, that when once I am on my horse, with my sabre in hand, I will fight with the best lad of twenty years. I mount rather stiffly, because of a wound I received at Leipsic when we had the ill-luck to be defeated by Gustavus Adolphus."
"Why, man, do you mean to say that fifty-two years ago you were in the army?"
"Yes, sire; and there I received the wound from which I still suffer to-day. The battle of Leipsic was far from being my first: it may have been the twentieth, but I am not quite sure. When first I entered the service, I used to mark our battles with a red cross when we were victorious, and a black one when we were unfortunate; but, after I had been in the army for twenty years, I stopped. There were too many fights to record."
"But you can remember your first battle, can you not?"