I read, I fear in a faltering voice:—
"Citoyen Général:
“Un homme qui a donné des preuves de son amour pour la Liberté et de sa haine pour le despotisme ne devait pas s'adresser en vain au ministre de la République française. Général, il est temps que les Américains libres de l'Ouest soient débarassés d'un ennemie aussi injuste que méprisable.”
When I had finished I glanced at the General, but he seemed not to be heeding me. The sun was setting above the ragged line of forest, and a blue veil was spreading over the tumbling waters. He took me by the arm and led me into the house, into a bare room that was all awry. Maps hung on the wall, beside them the General's new commission, rudely framed. Among the littered papers on the table were two whiskey bottles and several glasses, and strewn about were a number of chairs, the arms of which had been whittled by the General's guests. Across the rough mantel-shelf was draped the French tricolor, and before the fireplace on the puncheons lay a huge bearskin which undoubtedly had not been shaken for a year. Picking up a bottle, the General poured out generous helpings in two of the glasses, and handed one to me.
“The mists are bad, Davy,” said he; “I—I cannot afford to get the fever now. Let us drink success to the army of the glorious Republic, France.”
“Let us drink first, General,” I said, “to the old friendship between us.”
“Good!” he cried. Tossing off his liquor, he set down the glass and began what seemed a fruitless search among the thousand papers on the table. But at length, with a grunt of satisfaction, he produced a form and held it under my eyes. At the top of the sheet was that much-abused and calumniated lady, the Goddess of Liberty.
“Now,” he said, drawing up a chair and dipping his quill into an almost depleted ink-pot, “I have decided to make you, David Ritchie, with full confidence in your ability and loyalty to the rights of liberty and mankind, a captain in the Legion on the Mississippi.”
I crossed the room swiftly, and as he put his pen to paper I laid my hand on his arm.
“General, I cannot,” I said. I had seen from the first the futility of trying to dissuade him from the expedition, and I knew now that it would never come off. I was willing to make almost any sacrifice rather than offend him, but this I could not allow. The General drew himself up in his chair and stared at me with a flash of his old look.