Now, the man who carries a musket in the ranks, may very reasonably be deemed but a small ingredient of the mass that forms an army: and in our day his thoughts, hopes, fears, and ambitions are probably as unknown and uncared for, as the precise spot of earth that yielded the ore from which his own weapon was smelted. This is not only reasonable, but it is right. In the time of which I am now speaking it was far otherwise. The Republic, in extinguishing a class had elevated the individual; and now each, in whatever station he occupied, felt himself qualified to entertain opinions and express sentiments, which, because they were his own, he presumed them to be national. The idlers of the streets discussed the deepest questions of politics; the soldiers talked of war with all the presumption of consummate generalship. The great operations of a campaign, and the various qualities of different commanders, were the daily subjects of dispute in the camp. Upon one topic only were all agreed; and there, indeed, our unanimity repaid all previous discordance. We deemed France the only civilized nation of the globe, and reckoned that people thrice happy who, by any contingency of fortune, engaged our sympathy, or procured the distinction of our presence in arms. We were the heaven-born disseminators of freedom throughout Europe; the sworn enemies of kingly domination; and the missionaries of a political creed, which was not alone to ennoble mankind, but to render its condition eminently happy and prosperous.
There could not be an easier lesson to learn than this, and particularly when dinned into your ears all day, and from every rank and grade around you. It was the programme of every message from the Directory; it was the opening of every general order from the general; it was the table-talk at your mess. The burden of every song, the title of every military march performed by the regimental band, recalled it, even the riding-master, as he followed the recruit around the weary circle, whip in hand, mingled the orders he uttered with apposite axioms upon republican grandeur. How I think I hear it still, as the grim old quartermaster-sergeant, with his Alsatian accent and deep-toned voice, would call out.
"Elbows back! wrist lower and free from the side; free, I say, as every citizen of a great Republic! head erect, as a Frenchman has a right to carry it! chest full out, like one who can breathe the air of Heaven, and ask no leave from king or despot! down with your heel, sir; think that you crush a tyrant beneath it!"
Such and such like were the running commentaries on equitation, till often I forgot whether the lesson had more concern with a seat on horseback or the great cause of monarchy throughout Europe. I suppose, to use a popular phrase of our own day, "the system worked well;" certainly the spirit of the army was unquestionable. From the grim old veteran, with snow-white mustache, to the beardless boy, there was but one hope and wish—the glory of France. How they understood that glory, or in what it essentially consisted, is another and a very different question.
Enrolled as a soldier in the ninth regiment of Hussars, I accompanied that corps to Nancy, where, at that time, a large cavalry school was formed, and where the recruits from the different regiments were trained and managed before being sent forward to their destination.
A taste for equitation, and a certain aptitude for catching up the peculiar character of the different horses, at once distinguished me in the riding school, and I was at last adopted by the riding-master of the regiment as a kind of aide to him in his walk. When I thus became a bold and skillful horseman, my proficiency interfered with my promotion, for instead of accompanying my regiment, I was detained at Nancy, and attached to the permanent staff of the cavalry school there.
At first I asked for nothing better. It was a life of continued pleasure and excitement, and while I daily acquired knowledge of a subject which interested me deeply, I grew tall and strong of limb, and with that readiness in danger, and that cool collectedness in moments of difficulty, that are so admirably taught by the accidents and mischances of a cavalry riding-school.
The most vicious and unmanageable beasts from the Limousin were often sent to us; and when any one of these was deemed peculiarly untractable, "Give him to Tiernay," was the last appeal, before abandoning him as hopeless. I'm certain I owe much of the formation of my character to my life at this period, and that my love of adventure, my taste for excitement, my obstinate resolution to conquer a difficulty, my inflexible perseverance when thwarted, and my eager anxiety for praise, were all picked up amid the sawdust and tan of the riding-school. How long I might have continued satisfied with such triumphs, and content to be the wonder of the freshly-joined conscripts, I know not, when accident, or something very like it, decided the question.
It was a calm, delicious evening in April, in the year after I had entered the school, that I was strolling alone on the old fortified wall, which, once a strong redoubt, was the favorite walk of the good citizens of Nancy. I was somewhat tired with the fatigues of the day, and sat down to rest under one of the acacia trees, whose delicious blossom was already scenting the air. The night was still and noiseless; not a man moved along the wall; the hum of the city was gradually subsiding, and the lights in the cottages over the plain told that the laborer was turning homeward from his toil. It was an hour to invite calm thoughts, and so I fell a-dreaming over the tranquil pleasures of a peasant's life, and the unruffled peace of an existence passed amid scenes that were endeared by years of intimacy. "How happily," thought I, "time must steal on in these quiet spots, where the strife and struggle of war are unknown, and even the sounds of conflict, never reach." Suddenly my musings were broken in upon by hearing the measured tramp of cavalry, as at a walk, a long column wound their way along the zig-zag approaches, which by many a redoubt and fosse, over many a draw bridge, and beneath many a strong arch, led to the gates of Nancy. The loud, sharp call of a trumpet was soon heard, and, after a brief parley, the massive gates of the fortress were opened for the troops to enter. From the position I occupied exactly over the gate, I could not only see the long, dark line of armed men as they passed, but also hear the colloquy which took place as they entered.
"What regiment?"