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A peasant boy raised in a traditional village enters wider military and social worlds during the Napoleonic conflicts, experiencing hardship, battlefield service, and the chaos of retreat. His journey from local life into the imperial camp brings encounters with officers, moments of recognition, and the strain of national events such as the crossing of the Beresina and the battles after Waterloo. Interwoven domestic scenes, letters, and returns examine contrasts between serfdom and high society, and emphasize themes of duty, loyalty, moral growth, and faith amid upheaval.
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Punctuation and spelling of non-English words were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
Page 261: “adequately express, themselves” was printed with the comma.