CHAPTER XX.

ST. FLORIDAN; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT.

The night was dark, and the lamps of the Rue du Temple had nearly all been extinguished by a high wind; there was no moon visible.

It was in the month after the capture of Paris, in 1815, that the adventures I am about to relate occurred.

The defeat at Waterloo, the rapid advance of the British troops, the capture of Cambray by Sir Charles Colville, of Peronne, by the Brigade of Guards under Major-General Maitland, and, last of all, the seizure and military occupation of the great and glorious city of Paris—the citadel of Napoleon—the heart of France, had exasperated the French, and excited their animosity against us. Every citizen greeted us with darkened brows and lowering eyes.

No officer of the allied army could pass through the streets of Paris in perfect safety without being armed, and few went abroad from their billets or cantonments after nightfall, unless in small parties of three or four, for mutual protection. On many occasions we were openly insulted and severely maltreated in the more solitary streets or meaner suburbs of the city; while in the taverns and restaurateurs our quarrels were frequent with the old men of the Revolution, who had witnessed the decapitation of Louis, and the demolition of the Bastile; but still more so with the soldiers of Buonaparte, who were swarming in every part of Paris, in plain clothes, or in the rags and remnants of their uniform.

Those French officers whom we met at the promenades, on the Boulevards, in the Jardin des Plantes, at the theatres, or in the salons and billiard rooms, sought quarrels with us quite as frequently as their men; but these, of course, ended in hostile rencontres, and for the first weak or two a morning seldom passed without a French, or British, or Prussian officer being borne dead, or wounded, through a mocking crowd at the barriers, from the Bois de Boulogne.

In all these wanton quarrels and street assaults the republicans eminently distinguished themselves, and often vented their pitiful spleen by spitting at us from the windows; by hissing and railing at us in language that would have disgraced the denizens of the infamous faubourg St. Antoine; but after a time, when it became generally known that their great emperor had surrendered himself to Captain Maitland, of the Bellerophon, and submitted to the clemency of Britain, their virulence abated, and their manner became somewhat changed towards us: though their hatred of the Russian troops, sharpened by the bitter memories of the retreat from Moscow, was undying and inextinguishable.

It is an old story now; but Lord Wellington had taken every means to insure the tranquillity of the city, and to repress any armed outbreak, which must assuredly have ended in its utter destruction; for the Black Eagle of Hapsburg soared above Montmartre, and the Union of Britain waved over the splendid garden, the winding walks, and leafy groves of the Champs Elysées; the brass cannon of Blucher were planted at every barrier-gate, loaded with grape and canister, to rake the streets at a moment's notice; while by night and by day, his artillerists, in their blue great coats and bearskin caps, remained by their guns, with swords drawn and matches lighted. A regiment of Scottish Highlanders occupied the Tuileries; the Prussian advanced guard was in position on the road to Orleans, cutting off the remnant of the French army who had survived the 18th of June, and still obeying the baton of Davoust, were lingering on the banks of the Loire. Every approach to Paris was guarded by our infantry, and a strong division of the Allies were encamped in the Wood of Boulogne, and along the right bank of the Seine, so far as St. Ouen.

Never was Paris, the glory of France, more completely humbled since Henry of England unfurled his banner on its walls!

My regiment, the Fifth Hussars, were in the third, or Sir Colquhoun Grant's cavalry brigade. We were quartered at Ligny, a small town on the Marne, about fifteen miles from Paris, where we occupied the ancient Benedictine monastery, which had been founded in the eighth century by St. Fursi, a Scot, as the old curé of the place informed me; and there, with an irreverence for which the public utility, the chances of war, and the orders of the quartermaster-general must plead our excuse, we stabled our horses in the church, and stored our rations and forage in the chapel of Our Lady of Compassion.

It was while matters at Paris were in the state I have described, that I obtained leave from parade one day, hooked on my pelisse and sabre, and rode from Ligny to visit the city of sunshine and gaiety, bustle and smoke, music and wine, intending to return to my billet, which was in the house of the curé near the bridge over the Marne.

I was in time to see the Russians reviewed by the Emperor Alexander, and passed the day very agreeably, visiting the Champ de Mars, the Tuileries, where the soldiers in the garb of old Gaul were keeping guard, as in the days of the Ancient Alliance; the site of the Bastile, the Hotel des Invalides, where many an old soldier of the Empire saluted me with more of sternness than respect in their aspect: the temple where the hapless Louis had been confined, and the noble gallery of the Louvre, on the lofty walls of which were many a blank where the officers of the Allied army had torn down and conveyed away the artistic spoils of their several nations—spoils wrested from every city in Europe by the invading armies of Napoleon.

I dined at a restaurateur's on a beefsteak à l'Anglais and kickshaws, a bottle of tent dashed with brandy, and walked forth to enjoy a cigar on the Boulevards, where several of our bands from the Champs Elysées, and those of the Austrians from Montmartre, were playing divinely for the amusement of the thousands crowding those magnificent promenades, which, as all the world knows, or ought to know, encircle the good city of Paris, and were shaded by many a stately plane and lime tree, that was levelled to form the barricades of the last revolution.

There were the officers of the Allies in all uniforms, the scarlet of Britain, the white of Austria, the blue of Prussia, and the green of Russia, with all the varieties of their different branches of service, horse, foot, artillery, and rifles; Calmucks, Tartars, Scots, Highlanders, and English guardsmen, jostling and mingling among moustachioed students of l'Ecole de Medicine, French priests in their long plain surtouts and white collars, and Parisian dandies in their puckered trousers, short frock coats, and little hats; while the ladies, seated on camp stools, formed each the centre of a circle, in which revolved a little world of wit and chat and laughter; and the vendors of cigars, of bon-bons, hot coffee, and iced lemonade, pushed their way and a brisk trade through the crowd together.

I had tired of all this, and was thinking of my fifteen miles ride back to Ligny, through a rural district to which I was a stranger, though I had my sabre and pistols, and luckily the latter had been loaded by my groom. Nine o'clock was tolling from the steeples of Paris; the crowds on the Boulevards were dispersing; the bands had all played the old Bourbon anthem, 'Vive Henri Quatre!' and with the troops had repaired to their several cantonments. The trumpets of the Austrians had pealed their last night call from Montmartre, and the English drums from the Champs Elysées, and the shrill Scottish pipes from the Tuileries had replied to them. The lighted portfires of the Prussian artillery were beginning to gleam at the barriers. The streets were becoming deserted and still.

Turning down the Rue du Temple, as I have stated, from the Boulevard St. Martin, I endeavoured to make my way to the stables of the hotel where I had left my horse.

The darkness had increased very much, and the oil lamps in the thoroughfares were few and far between, and creaked mournfully in concert with many a signboard as they swung to and fro to the full extent of the cords by which they were suspended in the centre of the way.

Aware that the streets of Paris were then far from safe after nightfall, and that the knife of the assassin was used as adroitly within sound of the bells of Notre Dame as on the banks of the Ebro—with my furred pelisse buttoned up, and my sabre under my arm, I hurried on, anxious to avoid all rencontres with chevaliers d'industrie and other vagrants, who from time to time, by the occasional light of the swinging lanterns, I could perceive lurking in the shadows of porches and projections of the ancient street.

I soon became aware that two of these personages were dogging or accompanying me, on the opposite side of the way; increasing their pace if I quickened mine, and lingering when I halted or stepped short. Anxious to avoid brawls, for on that point the orders of the Duke of Wellington were alike stringent and severe, I continued to walk briskly forward, keeping a sharp eye to my two acquaintances, whose dusky figures seemed like shadows gliding along the opposite wall, for the cold and high night-wind had extinguished so many of the oil lanterns, that some of the streets branching off from the Boulevard du Temple and the Rue St. Martin, were involved in absolute darkness and gloom.

I was somewhat perplexed after wandering for a considerable distance, to find myself on the margin of the Seine, which jarred against its quays, flowing on like a dark and waveless current, in which the twinkling lights of the Quai de Bourbon, and the gigantic shadows of the double towers of the church of Notre Dame were reflected.

My followers had disappeared; but my uneasiness was no way diminished, being well aware that the clank of my spurs might mark my whereabouts; and I was conscious that the gorgeously-laced hussar pelisse and jacket of the Fifth were more than enough to excite cupidity. I shrunk back from the Seine, on thinking of the ghastly Morgue (with its rows of naked corpses spread like fish on leaden trays), and the five francs given by the police of Paris for every body found in the river at daybreak.

A low whistle made me start.

I turned round, and at that moment received a blow from a bludgeon, which would infallibly have fractured my left temple, had not my thick fur cap, with its long scarlet kalpeck, saved me. I reeled, and immediately found myself seized by four ruffians, who flung themselves upon me, and endeavoured to pinion my arms, and wrench from me my sabre, while they dragged me towards the edge of the Quai de la Grève.

Strong, young, active, and exasperated, I struggled with them desperately, and succeeded in obtaining the hilt of my sabre, which I immediately unsheathed, for the fellow who had been endeavouring to drag it from my belt, grasped it by the sheath only; and an instant sufficed to level him on the pavement, with his jaw cloven through, and there he lay, yelling with rage and pain, and blaspheming in the style of the Faubourg St. Antoine. Upon this his companions fled.

Solitary as the quay had appeared, the cries of the wounded bravo brought around me a swarm of vagrants from house stairs, from nooks in the parapets of the Pont Notre Dame, and from all the various holes and corners, where they had been nestling for the night, or hiding from the patrols of the gensd'armes; and recognising me at once as an officer of that detested Allied army, which had swept their vast host from the plains of Waterloo, and prostrated the eagle and tricolour, they assailed me with every epithet of opprobrium that hatred and malice could suggest; and there was an almost universal shout of "A la lanterne! à la lanterne!" in which, no doubt, my first assailants joined; and immediately I saw a lamp descend, as the cord was unfastened from the wall of the street, and lowered for my especial behoof.

Alarmed and exasperated by the danger and insult with which I was menaced, I endeavoured to break through the press, by threateningly brandishing my sabre, but though the circle around me widened, still I was encompassed at every step, and made the mark at which a pitiless shower of mud, stones, and abuse poured without a moment's cessation.

While some cried "à la lanterne!" others shouted for the gensd'armes and accused me of murder. I could perceive, to my no small concern, that the knave I had cut down lay motionless upon the pavement; and most unpleasant ideas floated before me, that even if I escaped immolation at the hands of these enraged Parisians, I might have to encounter the greater humiliation and graver terrors of Monsieur le Duc de Quiche—the Cour Royale de Paris—the Chamber of Appeals—the Correctional Police, and heaven only knew what more.

At this perplexing crisis, a young French officer, in the scarlet uniform of the Garde du Corps of Louis XVIII., broke through the crowd, exclaiming.—

"Halt! hold—in the name of the king—down with you, insolent citizens! Is it thus you treat our allies? Nom d'un Pape! but I will sabre the first that lays a finger upon him. Permit me—this way, Monsieur Officier;" and he put his arm through mine.

We were now in a low quarter of the city; the crowd of squalid wretches was increasing around us every moment; lights flashed at the opened windows of the neighbouring houses, and I could perceive the glittering bayonets, and the great cocked hats of a sergeant and six gensd'armes hurrying along the lighted quay, either to my rescue or capture, but which was dubious, for the vagabond women and rag-pickers continued to yell incessantly,—

"Arrest! arrest!—seize the English murderer! away with him to the concierge!"

My heart beat quick; but my new friend of the Garde du Corps seemed to be quite 'au fait' in the management of such affairs, by the admirable tact and decision he displayed. Calling lustily for the gensd'armes, he suddenly grasped half-a-dozen of the foremost men in succession, and rapidly—for he was a powerful fellow, threw them in a heap over the wounded man, thus increasing the tumult, the rage, and the confusion.

Then seizing me by the hand, he said hurriedly, "Monsieur will pardon me—but come this way, or you will be torn to pieces!" and half leading, half dragging me, he conveyed me down a dark and narrow street. "Nom d'un Pape! I could not see a brother of the epaulette maltreated by these rascally citizens," he continued, laughing heartily at the rage and confusion of the bourgeois. "Ha! ha! follow me! I know how to escape. There are deuced few outlets, holes or corners, byeways or sallyports in Paris, that I don't know. Ah corboeuf! didn't they all tumble delightfully over like so many ninepins? Ha! ha! but hark! they follow us. Hasten with me, Monsieur Officier, and remember that a brawl in this neighbourhood may prove infinitely more dangerous to you than to me."

I was too well aware of that to resist his guidance and advice; and having no ambition to suffer, like St. Stephen, at the hands of a mob, or (escaping that) to figure next morning before the correctional police, and in the evening endure a reprimand from Wellington, I fairly turned, and, accompanying my guide, ran at full speed along the dark alley, laughing heartily at the affair. Gathering like a snowball, as it rolled along, the multitude came on, puffing and shouting, and swearing and yelling behind us.

"This way," cried my guide, who laughed uproariously, and seemed one of the merriest fellows imaginable; "this way—Vive la joie! we are all right now!"

"Where are you leading me, in the name of all that is miraculous?" I exclaimed, as my companion, laying violent hands upon my sash, almost dragged me down a flight of steps, which apparently led into the bowels of the earth. The appearance of the vast depth to which they descended being increased by a few hazy oil lamps that twinkled at the bottom.

"Excuse me, Monsieur," said I; "what the mischief—'t is a strange den this! I will go no further!"

"Courage, mon brave! courage! why we have only descended about a hundred steps or so;" replied the Frenchman, still continuing to descend. "You will find this an old and odd place too; but if you would escape an enraged rabble, the claws of the police, the maison de force, the prison, and the devil, follow me, and trust to my honour. I am Antoine St. Florian, Captain of the Garde du Corps, and late of the 23rd Grenadiers under the Emperor. You are safe—I know every nook in this subterranean world, for I have found a shelter in its ample womb many a time before to-night."

He still continued to speak as he descended, but the sound of his voice became lost in the vast space of the hollow vaults; my curiosity was excited: I still kept my sabre drawn, prepared for any sudden surprise or act of treachery, and continued to descend some hundred steps, to a depth which I afterwards ascertained to be 860 feet.

"This way, Monsieur; on—on yet!" exclaimed my conductor, hurrying me forward through a gloomy vault, and at that moment I heard the uproar of the multitude, and the buzz of their mingled voices resounding afar off, and high above us at the mouth of the lofty staircase.

The aspect of the place in which I so suddenly found myself was so strange, so novel, so grotesquely horrible, that for some moments I was unable to speak, and gazed about me in astonishment. The whole place seemed hewn out of the solid rock, and the height of its roof was about twelve feet from the floor, which was uniformly paved. In every direction caverns were seen branching off lighted by lamps which vanished away in long lines of perspective till they seemed to twinkle and expire amid the noxious and foggy vapours of this wonderful place, which appeared like a vast subterranean city, or the work of enchantment. The atmosphere was cold as that of a winter day, and I was sensible of the utmost difficulty of respiration.

Myriads of human skulls, grim, bare, and fleshless, with grinning jaws and eyeless sockets, piles of human bones, gaunt arms and jointed thighs, basket-like ribs and ridgy vertebræ, were ranged in frightful mockery along the sides of the vaulted alleys or avenues of this subterranean city of Death. The ghastly taste of some grim artist had arrayed all these poor emblems of mortality in the form of columns with capitals and arcades of intertwisted arches, but from every angle of which the bare jaws grinned, and the empty sockets looked drearily down upon us, producing an effect that, when viewed by the dim and uncertain light of the oil lamps, was alike wondrous and terrible. I was now in the Catacombs of Paris, that place of which I had heard so much.

To me, who had but recently left the Peninsula, the appearance of these remnants of the men of other years was less striking than it would prove to visitors generally; for many a time and oft, I had bivouacked where the dead of France and Britain lay unburied; and I thought of Albuera and the plains of Salamanca, where we had encamped within twelve months after battles had been fought there—and pitched our tents and lighted our camp fires on ground strewn, for miles and miles, with the half-buried skeletons of the brave who had fallen there, producing an effect that was never to be effaced from the memory. There the triumphs of death were calculated to impress the mind with melancholy; but here it was too grotesquely grim and horrible.

Scraps of verses from Ovid, Virgil, and Anacreon, appeared over the entrances of these caverns or crypts, in gilt letters that glimmered through the gloom; while, with a strange incongruity, but in true keeping with the morbid taste of the French, large red and yellow bills, the advertisements of the theatres, the fashionable hotels, concerts, and tailors, &c., appeared on different parts of the walls.

At a little distance there bubbled up a sparkling fountain, the plash of which rang hollowly in the vast vaults, as it fell into a large basin, where a number of gold fish were swimming. Over it shone the legend, in gilded letters—

"THIS IS THE WATER OF OBLIVION."

"They are strange and frightful places, these Catacombs, Monsieur St. Florian," said I.

"True, mon ami," he replied, pausing to take breath; "but famous for the growth of asthmatic coughs, and all diseases of the lungs. Peste! What an uproar these bourgeois make. The affair has quite sobered me, for I was somewhat unsteady before. My face is scratched, I think. Does it seem so?"

"Rather."

"Mille baionettes! do you say so? and I shall be for guard to-morrow at the chateau—and with this swollen face. Morbleu! what will the ladies think?"

"I regret very much, Monsieur le Capitaine, that for me——"

"Pho! my dear fellow, no apologies; I care not a sous about it," said my new friend, whom I could now see to be a tall and handsome fellow, whose scarlet uniform, faced and lapelled with blue, fitted him to admiration. His face was prepossessing in its contour, and was very much "set off," or enhanced, by his sparkling dark eyes, his jet moustache, and smart red forage-cap; but he had quite the air of a 'roué,' and the unmistakable bearing of a man about town. "Ha! ha!" he continued, "how messieurs the bourgeois were rolled over each other; that was indeed a coup de grace—the trick of an old routier! Ah! 't was poor Jacques Chataigneur taught me that."

"How hollow our voices sound in these vaults," said I, after a pause; for the Frenchman's merry tones and light remarks seemed strange to me amid the deathlike stillness of a place so sad, so gloomy. "The echoes seem to come from an amazing distance."

"Oui: I will vouch for it, Monsieur never saw a place like this before. The Parisian dead of a dozen centuries are piled about us, and afford fine scope for philosophy and moralising. Diable! what an uproar there will be among all these separated heads, legs, and arms, when the last trumpet sounds; and many a hearty malediction will be bestowed on Monsieur Lenoir, of the Correctional Police, who, to please the morbid taste of the good bourgeoisie of Paris, made all this ghastly display. Corboeuff! the skulls are all piled up like cannon balls in the arsenal—there were more than two millions of them at the last muster. But, hark!"

At that moment we heard a distant cry of "A la lanterne! Death to the Englishman!" and a rush of footsteps down the long staircase followed.

"We had better secure our retreat," said the French captain; "all the avenues are closed, save that at the Val de Grace; and if messieurs the gensd'armes possess themselves of it, we shall be captured like mice in a trap. The lieutenant-general ordered all the other outlets to be closed, because they afforded safe and sudden retreats for chevaliers d'industrie, and other worthies, who, after nightfall, become thick as locusts in the streets of this pious and good city of Paris. Nombril de Belzebub! behold! our friends have been reinforced."

I looked back, and could see a party of about twenty gensd'armes advancing, but at a great distance, and their fixed bayonets flashed like stars in these misty caverns. The mob were in hundreds behind them, and the clatter of their feet and their cries rang with a thousand reverberations through the vast vacuity of these echoing catacombs. We could see them all distinctly; for though a quarter of a mile distant, the lamps burned brightly where they were passing.

"I have my sabre, and will confront these rascals," I exclaimed, becoming inflamed with sudden passion; "they dare not lay hands on me, as a British officer."

"Peste!" he replied, laughing; "I think you have seen whether they will or not. 'T is better not to trust them; a bayonet stab I do not mind, but think how unpleasant for a gentleman to be captured at the instance of a few rascally citizens. 'T will never do! We are not far now from the Val de Grace. This way, up the steps, and I will lead you to a secret doorway, near a nice little house that I know of, and where a pretty face will welcome us with smiles."

By the hand he conducted me up several flights of steps, along an excavated corridor, where the cold wind blew freely in my face, and from thence by a doorway, the exact locality of which seemed well known to him, ushered me into a dark and quiet street, in a part of Paris quite unknown to me.

"My friend, we are safe; that is the Val de Grace," said my frank captain, pointing to a large mass of building; "there is the Rue Marionette, and that large street still full of open shops, light, and people, is the Rue du Faubourg St. Jacques, which leads straight across the river. We can mingle with the crowd, and there all traces of us will be lost."

"Any way you please," I replied; "never having been in this part of Paris before, I am quite bewildered. Lead on, if you please; it is a dark place, this."

"The Russians have probably been passing this way. It is well known in Paris that these piggish Muscovites never return to their camp from a ball or café without drinking up the contents of every lamp within their reach; nor can all the alertness of the gend'armerie prevent them."

On gaining the main street of the faubourg, the blaze of the lighted shops, the long lines of lamps, the gaiety and bustle which were seen on every side, together with the free healthy breath of the upper air, were a pleasant exchange for the dark and silent caverns we had quitted, where breathing was almost impossible, and the mind was oppressed by the gloom of surrounding objects.

"Vive la joie!" exclaimed Captain St. Florian, almost dancing as he took my arm; "how delightful is the free air of the streets after leaving that pestilent pit. Ouf! I shall never trust myself down there again. But now we must sup together at a restaurateur's. Come to the Oriflamme; 'tis down the Rue de Bondy; Merci! there is a pretty waiteress there—a perfect Hebe. Her smart lace cap and braided apron—her red cheeks and roguish eyes will quite vanquish you."

"Well then, the Oriflamme be it."

"You will behold teeth and eyes that some of our dames in the great world of fashion would give fifty thousand francs to possess."

Turning down the street, we entered a restaurateur's, on whose sign the Eagle of Napoleon had lately given place to the ancient ensign of the Bourbons.

A very pretty girl who sat within the bar with a handkerchief over her head, tied en marmotte, arose and welcomed us with a smile.

"Ah, entrez Antoine St. Florian," said she, raising her arched eyebrows with a true Parisian expression of pleasure and familiarity; "entrez, Monsieur."

St. Florian called her his 'belle Janette,' and saluted her cheek with all the freedom of an old friend, as she ushered us along a corridor, on each side of which were neat little chambers, or cabinets, each having a single table and two chairs.

That appropriated for us, had a lustre with two lights, and the walls were decorated with coloured prints of Jena, Marengo, Leipsic, and other hard-fought battles, on which St. Florian soon began to comment with all the ardour and enthusiasm of a French soldier; and by his sentiments soon revealed, that though poverty or policy had compelled him to assume the scarlet trappings of King Louis' guards, his heart was still with the fallen Emperor—the idol of a hundred thousand soldiers.

"And so your old regiment was the 23rd?" said I.

"Ah, the 23rd of the Emperor," he replied with a sigh, while his eyes lighted up at the name.

"I remember that we charged your regiment at the passage of the Nive, where I was on the very point of sabreing a young officer, before I fortunately perceived that the poor fellow's sword arm was tied up in a sling, and that he was quite defenceless."

"Indeed, how singular! and you saved him from your troopers, and conducted him out of the press——"

"For which he gave me a draught of country wine from his canteen."

"The same. Ah, monsieur, my friend, I am that officer, and I owe you eternal thanks."

We shook hands with ardour.

"I had been severely wounded by the poniard of a villanous Spanish peasant, and was still suffering from its effects. Ah, it was quite a story, that affair; my evil eye brought it all about."

"Your evil eye?"

"Ah," he replied, laughing; "you would not think I had one, to look at me—I seem so innocent; but so I have, or, at least, had when I was in Spain; ha! ha! You have often heard the Spaniards speak of the Evil Eye—the Malocchio of the Italians? and how the women will veil themselves, cover up their children, and mutter a prayer if a stranger but glances at them."

"I have heard of that superstition, when on the borders of Estremadura; but your affair—"

"Listen, and fill your glass with the champagne—I call it 'The Evil Eye.'—'T is a perfect romance, and was well known to many a brave fellow of the 23rd, who has found his grave at the foot of Mont St. Jean."

CHAPTER XXI.

THE WIDOW; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT.

"I was quartered with my company of grenadiers at El Puerto, a wretched village in Andalusia; a poor place it was, that had been rifled by our foragers a dozen times, and we very unwisely made it still more miserable, by burning the best cottages before we were ordered to quit it.

"I quartered myself on the best casa in the village, a red-tiled hut, that belonged to a strange-looking fellow, whose long visage and long legs, great black eyes, yellow trunk breeches, green doublet, and sugar-loaf hat, made him seem half muleteer, half gitano. I believe, from his superstitious observances, that he was the latter wholly. You will know, doubtless, how famous Andalusia is for its women and horses. Ha! I wish you had seen the wife of my long-legged patron. She had the beautiful eyes and olive skin of her native province, with teeth like pearls, lips like cherries, and a face full of the sweetness of the mildest Madonna. Ha! ha! I am growing quite poetical! but wine or love always make me so. You will never see, even on our Boulevards, and that is a bold assertion, a pair of more superb ankles, than the short red petticoats of that Andalusian woman revealed to the pure gaze of your most obedient servant. Peste! I was quite enchanted with my pretty patrona, and determined on sending her husband, tied across a mule, as a spy to the British lines, that so I might be rid of him for a time, or for ever.

"They had a child, too, a merry little brat, with which I often played and toyed, to please its mother, whose heart was quite won by the bonbons I gave it; while her tall ghostly don of a husband stood sullenly aloof, smoking a paper cigar, and regarding me from beneath his broad sombrero, with eyes full of jealousy and malice. Now, as the devil would have it, the little brat had long been ailing, and seemed very likely to die at the time we came to El Puerto; and as she watched her sleeping infant, the mother's eyes were often suffused with tears. This, you may be aware, served but to make the charming Spaniard more interesting; for her melting black orbs seemed to be ever steeped in the most delicious languor.

"One evening I became very much aware of this; and after toying a little with the sickly infant, by tickling its neck with a braid of the mother's long black hair, while I lisped soft nothings from time to time, I departed to look for Jean Graule, my sergeant, to hold a consultation about the safe transmission of the señor patron to the British lines, and with my compliments to the officer commanding the nearest out-picquet.

"The evening was rather gloomy; I missed my way, and strolled into one of those underground vaults, bodegas, as they are called, where the peasants keep their wine in Andalusia. There I amused myself probing the pigskins with my sword, and imbibing the cool balmy wine from the orifice, till, somehow, a heaviness stole over me, and I fell fast asleep.

"About midnight I awoke, and found myself alone in the dark bodega, drenched with the wine that had flowed from the wounded skins; and feeling very cold, with the agreeable accompaniments of an aching head and sore bones.

"By the moonlight which struggled through a grated window, I sought my way out of the vault, up the stair, and gained the street of the silent Puebla, where I stood still for some time to rally my scattered faculties, and recollect where I was. While this passed, a man, who had been concealed under the shadow of a vine trellis, rushed upon me, and furiously struck at my breast with a knife or dagger. My shoulder-belt saved me from the stroke; 't was lucky that I had it on, otherwise I should not have been enjoying monsieur's society, and this glorious wine, to-night.

"'Ah, mouchard, vagabond!' I exclaimed, and closing in a desperate struggle with the would-be assassin, succeeded in striking him to the earth; where, holding my sword at his throat, I demanded his reasons for assailing me thus.

"'To have slain you!' he growled.

"'For what, you base rascal?'

"'To have revenged the loss of my child,' replied the fellow, whom I now recognised to be no other than my worthy patron, the long-legged paisano.

"'Ouf!' said I.

"'Dog of a Frenchman! on the day you first came into my poor cottage the child was well and strong, for it was under the protection of the Blessed Virgin; but you turned an evil eye upon it, and, lo! it sickened; day by day it grew worse, and to-night it died: not even romero at its neck, nor the agua bendita on its brow, could shield it from your evil influence. Son of Satan, I spit upon you!'

"'A pest upon your brat, you insolent madman,' said I, almost laughing, for the wine of the bodega had still its influence over me: 'had you said that I cast evil eyes on your wife, there might have been some truth in the matter; but your child—ha, ha!' and I laughed till the street of the Puebla rang again. 'Halloo, Sergeant Graule—quarter guard—ho, there!' and a dozen of my grenadiers rushed from a tavern to my assistance.

"To Jean Graule's care I recommended the señor, and in five minutes, at the end of a tent cord, he swung from the chimney of a neighbouring house.

"'Now, señor rascal,' said I, making him a mock bow, on leaving him in the grasp of the soldiers, 'I will go and console your pretty wife for the loss of her child, and more particularly that of her amiable spouse. Both are so easily replaced, that I would recommend you to die in peace, my jovial pagan.'

"'My wife, my wife!' said he, in a terrible voice, striking his breast and looking upwards. 'El Santo de los Santos—Holy of Holies, forgive me.'

"'Console yourself, my friend,' said I, while Jean Graule and the soldiers laughed till their belts nearly burst. 'Console yourself, señor paisano, for your little wife shall laugh and be merry to-night.'

"'She waits you,' said he, with a frightful smile. Diable! methinks I can see his white face, as he grinned, like a shark, in the moonlight; 'She awaits you.'

"Graule dragged him off.

"I hurried to the cottage of the paisano; but, mon Dieu, what a sight awaited me!

"On her bed, a miserable mat, lay the beautiful Andalusian girl, stone dead; stabbed by a poniard thrice in the neck, and her little infant, also dead, lay in her arms, pressed to her crimson bosom. In the first gust of my fury I rushed out to slay the jealous perpetrator of this horror; but he had, as I have already said, paid the debt of nature, and his dying form was wavering in the moonlight from the gable-end of a neighbouring house.

"Bah! there is always something in this reminiscence that makes me dismal—but let me think no more of it."

And draining his glass of champagne, the gay St. Florian began to hum an old camp song, beating time with his fingers on the well-polished table. Though this episode of his life rather decreased my admiration for this gay fellow, still the jaunty manner in which he related it somewhat amused me.

With the pretty Janette he appeared to be an old-established friend; and a great deal of flirting, and that kind of conversation which consists of pretty trifles, ensued each time she appeared on the ringing of the bell. But the ci-devant grenadier of Napoleon was doubtless on the same easy footing with all the waiteresses and shop-girls in every warehouse, cabaret, and café in and about Paris.

As the night was rather chilly, I proposed that we should have some mulled port, spiced with cloves and sugar, in a mode I had often had it prepared at Madrid by an old patrona on whom I was billeted.

St. Florian's countenance changed at the mention of the mulled wine, and with ill-concealed disgust and precipitation he protested against it, swearing by the head of the Pope, that although he never drank water when anything better could be had, he would rather drink it out of a ditch, after a brigade of horse had passed through it, than taste mulled wine of any kind.

"And why so?" I asked, astonished by his vehemence.

"Sacre nom—'tis another long story; but Chataigneur, of the 23rd, and I, were as nearly brought to the threshold of death as may be by some muddy liquor called mulled port, and I never could look upon it, or think of it, with any degree of patience. You will find the story in all the French and Spanish newspapers. Ouf! it made a devil of a noise in the army."

"I should be glad to hear it," said I, touching the bell-rope; "but in the meantime——"

"We will have some more champagne. Yes, the champagne of the Oriflamme is delicious. I have drunk a tun here, I believe—aye, in this very room, with Jacques Chataigneur. There are some caricatures of Monsieur Vellainton which he chalked on the wall. Poor Jacques! a shot from that cursed Chateau of Hougomont passed through his heart, when, sword in hand, he was leading on the grenadiers of the great Emperor to conquest or to death. He fell within a yard of me, prone over his horse's crupper, and his last words were—'To the charge, to the charge! Vive l'Empereur!' If true courage and bravery are rewarded in heaven—but, ma foi! I am growing quite pathetic. Where is the wine? Janette," he cried, down the passage, "Janette, my princess!"

"Ah oui, monsieur—me voila!" replied the girl, running in.

"My dear girl, let us have some champagne, a few more cigars, and a nice little tray of grapes, or bon-bons; but let the wine be bright as your own eyes, my wanton."

The girl was tripping away.

"But halt, Janette," he added, catching her by the skirt; "how long is it since a rough moustache has been pressed to that pretty cheek of yours?"

"Monsieur St. Florian, you are pleased to be very rude."

"Come, coquette, do not affect to mistake pure admiration for rudeness. Now you owe one salute, my pretty Janette, for remember how you fled from me last night on the Quai de la Conference."

"Well, then, one only," said she, tendering her cheek, which was slightly rouged.

St. Florian stole three.

"Ah treacherous!" exclaimed the girl, striking him playfully with her hand, and skipping away.

"Peste!" said the captain, twirling his moustache; "but your little fingers smart, my pretty one."

"Now for the other story, Monsieur St. Florian," said I, when the bright wine sparkled in the tall glasses, and our fair attendant had withdrawn. "I would fain learn why an old soldier dislikes any sort of wine. I have often drank ditch-water on the line of march, and have gladly filled my canteen from the ruts of the artillery wheels——"

"And so have I a thousand times, but my dislike to mulled port arises from something more than mere prejudice—bah! this is worth an ocean of a muddy drench, boiled in a kettle with sugar and cloves. See how it sparkles when the glass is raised to the light. Ma foi! 't is like a glass full of diamonds. We shall drink to the emperor."

"I have no objection."

"I hope the door is closed, though. Paris is such a city for espionage, police, and informers: Ouf! but 'Vive l'Empereur Napoleon!'" and he drained his long glass, while his dark eyes flashed with enthusiasm.

"Long life to him!" said I, with a frankness that won the Frenchman's heart; "and now let me know the cause of this horror of mulled wine."

"Perhaps you have already heard it. I well remember that it made a deuced noise at the time it occurred, and, save the maid of Zaragossa, there never was a woman so extolled by the Spaniards as she of whom I am about to speak,—

"THE WIDOW OF MADRID;"

for so he named the following story.

"It was in the month of December, when the immortal emperor and the victorious army of France captured Madrid, that Jacques Chataigneur, four officers of the Imperial Guard, and myself, were quartered, or rather, according to the unceremonious custom of war in the like cases, took the liberty of quartering ourselves, on a house in one of the most fashionable streets in the city.

"Every place within the walls was full of our troops; horse and foot were swarming in tens of thousands; the red rosette and the banner of Castile and Leon had disappeared; the French eagle soared in triumph over the capital of the Spaniards. Every house, from the great palace of the Duke d'Ossuna to the poorest casa on the margin of the Manzanares, was undergoing a strict investigation, to discover where Messieurs the Spaniards had hid their doubloons and other valuables, for which the pouches and haversacks of our soldiers were yawning.

"Our fellows were rather riotous, especially about the cafés and wine-houses, where every man drank his fill, without being at the expense of a single sou. The city was involved in chaos and uproar. Merci! 't was such a hubbub as you in all your service can never have witnessed; for, what with disarming the men, and running after pretty women, searching for wine, provisions, and plunder, our soldiers had quite enough of business on their hands.

"The house which we honoured with our presence, on this auspicious occasion, was a handsome mansion, with broad balconies, and lofty saloons, having gilded ceilings, tiled floors, and rich furniture; and you may imagine how acceptable the splendid bed-chambers were to us, who had been under canvas for months.

"It belonged to Donna Elvira de Almeria, whose family had just been reduced to one daughter, by the unexpected deaths of her husband and three sons, who had fallen on the previous day sword in hand, as she told us, like true cavaliers, defending the palace of the Betiro, which had been breached by the cannon of the Marshal Duke of Belluno; but the ghastly gap had been defended with admirable resolution and bravery by the Spaniards; so the soldiers of the emperor, petulant at all times, were somewhat exasperated in consequence.

"We, ourselves, were ripe for mischief, and I cannot rehearse all the fine things we did in our ramble through the city that night: I beseech you to suppose them.

"The household of the Donna Elvira were, as may be imagined, overwhelmed with terror and grief by the misfortune which war had brought upon them; and their condition was in no way soothed or ameliorated by our appearance among them, blackened with powder and smoke, and bespattered with blood and dust, for we had hewn our way in by the breach at the Retiro.

"The ladies were both handsome, but more especially the daughter Virginia, a timid girl of about fifteen; and at these years a Spaniard is almost a woman. Her tears, I blush to say, made little impression on me, but her beauty had a great effect on as all. However, drunk as we were, we remembered Chataigneur was our senior officer, and that his pleasure must be known before the officer next in rank presumed to open the trenches; or, in other words, address the ladies in the language of gallantry.

"Jacques was a child of the revolution, an iron-hearted soldier, penetrable only to steel and lead—half fox, half wolf; to anything soft or sentimental, he was immovable as a cannon-ball. It was said in the 23rd, that he had done some terrible things in La Vendée, and certainly his more recent campaigns in Holland and Italy had taught him to view with the coolness of a stoic the blood of the bravest men and the tears of the most beautiful women.

"Peste! he was a true philosopher, and one might march from Dunkirk to Damascus without meeting such another. He was never troubled with any unpleasant qualms of conscience—not he, because, like most of those fierce soldiers, who had been trained and nurtured amid the horrors of the revolution, he believed in neither God nor devil, heaven nor hell, and, consequently, cared not a straw for any of them."

"A pretty picture of your friend and comrade," said I, with a smile.

"Peste! yes. He should have appointed me to write his epitaph. Chataigneur was the man it was a pleasure to follow to the breach or battle-field; for he cared as little for riding headlong on the charged bayonets of a solid square, or manoeuvring his regiment under a storm of grape-shot, as for handing his partner through the figures of a quadrille. But, to return. The ladies, on perceiving us enter their mansion uninvited, gave us a specimen of Spanish hauteur, by retiring to a distant apartment, and leaving us to provide for ourselves.

"This we were not long in doing. The servants had fled; but Chataigneur ordered three grenadiers of the 23rd, who were in attendance upon us, to break down the doors of the cellars and other repositories: thus, in the twinkling of an eye, we had the sherry, the Malaga, and the Ciudad Real of the old beldame in abundance.

"We installed ourselves in the finest saloon of the mansion, while messieurs our servants possessed themselves of the kitchen, where they stripped off their accoutrements and coats, piled half-a-dozen shutters, a door, and a chair or two on the hearth; and so zealous were they in preparing a repast for us, that the rascals nearly set the house on fire. All the pantries were laid under contribution, and large conscriptions were levied on the poultry-yard, and we were soon as merry as magnificent quarters, a plenteous supper, and wine ad libitum, without having a sou to pay for them all, could make us. We drank deadly bumpers in honour of the emperor, to the success of his armies, to ourselves, to the continuation of the war, to the girls we had left behind us in beautiful France, and the devil alone knows what more. Oh, the exquisite delights of living at free quarters in an enemy's country! Vive la joie! I need not expatiate upon them to you, for I heard of your pretty doings after Badajoz fell."

"They could not compare with yours at Madrid."

"You shall hear. 'In the ardour of our attack upon the savoury viands,' said the Chevalier de Vivancourt, a gay sub-lieutenant of the guard, 'we are quite forgetting the ladies!'

"'Mon Dieu! yes—what negligence!' said one or two ironically.

"'I shall make amends for our ungallantry,' said Chataigneur, starting up and staggering unsteadily; for he had enough of Ciudad Real under his belt to have served even a German. 'Hola! Pierre, Jean Graule, where are the ladies, just now—eh? the sour-visaged madame and plump little mademoiselle?'

"'Shall I have the honour of conducting them to the presence of monsieur?' said our sergeant, giving his military salute. 'The mother——'

"'Oh the devil take the mother, or you may have her yourself, honest Jean.'

"The sergeant bowed, and grinned.

"'But sabre de bois! 't is the little daughter I want,' said Chataigneur.

"'They are at prayer in their little oratory, I believe,' urged the chevalier, who was the least wicked among us.

"'Praying!' reiterated Jacques with intense disgust; 'I shall soon change their cheer. Are there any guitars or mandolins here? The girl—what's her name? Virginia shall bear us company in a merry chorus, or shall ride the cheval de bois with a vengeance.'

"'Let us have her by all means,' said one of the Imperial guardsmen; 'we must teach this young creature the first rudiments of love and coquetry.'

"'Will some of you lend a hand to undo the clasp of this infernal sword-belt?' grumbled Jacques, who was very tipsy. 'Avaunt, Jean Graule, thou art drunk, man! Vivancourt, most redoubtable chevalier of the immortal legion of honour, lend me thine aid. Corboeuf! I am swollen like a huge tortoise with Ciudal Real. Now, messieurs, remember that I am the senior officer here, and that whoever follows me does so at his peril.'

"And half-dancing, half staggering, he swaggered out of the room accompanied by Jean Graule.

"We continued to enjoy ourselves with supreme nonchalance, for the Imperial Guard and the 23rd Grenadiers were the most reckless routiers in the army. Believe me, we were too much accustomed to storming to trouble ourselves much about the little Spanish girl; but I am forgetting that you are not a Frenchman; so, fearing to shock your cold British prejudices, I will, as the novelists say, draw a veil over what passed;" and M. de St. Florian smiled complacently as he emptied and refilled his glass.

"Is it possible!" I exclaimed, with something of incredulity in my manner; "is it possible that brave soldiers, and gentlemen of France—France, once so famous for its spirit of honour and chivalry—could behave thus?"

"Monsieur, my word is never doubted," replied the other good-humouredly; "how could you expect us to behave like saints or apostles, or perhaps like the cool stoics that compose a regiment of kilts?

"Chataigneur was absent with Jean Graule about an hour, during which time we scarcely missed him, so closely did we pay court to the glittering decanters and bloated pig-skins, which we laid under contribution without mercy. The wax lights, were becoming double; the saloon was beginning to swim around us; and we were in the very midst of singing the carmagnole in full chorus, at the utmost pitch of our lungs, each having his drawn sabre in his right hand, and a mantling cup in his left, when the door was dashed open and Jacques Chataigneur entered, with Donna Elvira supported on one arm, and her daughter Donna Virginia on the other.

"With a triumphant and scornful air, he led or rather half dragged them in, and forced them to sit down at table with us.

"Although being so tipsy that I could scarcely know whether my head or heels were uppermost, I can still remember the terrible expression depicted in the faces of these two ladies. The mother's wore the fury and rage of a tigress; the blood seemed to boil in the swollen veins of her temples, and her large black Spanish eyes shot fire from time to time as she surveyed us. Her daughter's appeared the very reverse, and her face expressed only the darkness of despair.

"She was very beautiful; her long black hair was loosened from its braids, and hung matted in disorder about her shoulders, and half concealed her face, which was pale as death. Her eyes—you will remember the splendid eyes of the Spanish girls—her eyes were bloodshot and red with weeping; their expression was wild, wandering, insane; and there was a chilling air of desolation and abandonment in her grief that had, indeed, a very considerable effect on me (for I am not altogether such a bad fellow as monsieur may suppose me), although her utter despair had none on Chataigneur and my more intoxicated companions.

"Her lips were quivering, and her graceful Spanish dress, her long veil particularly, was torn to ribands.

"'Messieurs,' said Chataigneur, bowing with an air of mock politeness; 'I am permitted to have the high honour of introducing you to the notice of Donna Elvira de Almeria, widow of a very brave Caballero y Procuradore of new Castile, and her daughter the enchanting Virginia, whom, as I have two ladies who equally claim the title of Madame la Colonel, I shall advance to the ancient Spanish dignity of being my Barragano,* which will square all matters between us, so Vive la joie! let us drink and be merry!'

* See "Essayo Historico Critico on the Ancient Legislation, &c., &c., of Castile and Leon," 4to., Madrid, 1808, for this term.

"The eyes of the Spaniards absolutely glared as he spoke."

"The scoundrel!" I exclaimed, becoming excited by this revolting narrative. "Would to heaven that I had been there with a few of my English hussars."

"That would have availed little," replied St. Florian, pouring out his wine with slow sang froid; "every street and house within the trenches was swarming with our soldiers; and such scenes as that I have described were innumerable."

"Excuse me, Monsieur le Capitaine; but I must pronounce your comrade to have been a finished rascal."

"Peste!" muttered the Frenchman, half angrily; and then he continued, while laughing and twirling his moustache, "Opinion is the queen of the world—'t is a proverb we have, and a true one. But poor Chataigneur is gone now, and I must not hear him abused.

"But, to continue. The excitement of the preceding day's fighting, and the quantity of wine we had drunk, rendered us insensible to the distresses of these poor women; and with shame and sorrow I now remember that we permitted Chataigneur, by dint of many a savage threat, to compel them to assume their guitars and sing in accompaniment, while we chaunted a bacchanalian ditty suited only for the meridian of the lowest cabaret in the faubourg St. Antoine.

"What they sang Heaven only knows, for, nom d'un Pape! my comrade, the horrible catastrophe to this little supper has fairly driven all minor incidents from my memory. And there they sat and sang to us—sang with shame on their brows, and rage, and grief, and agony in their hearts—while a husband and three sons, a father and three brothers, were lying dead in their harness by the walls of the Retiro.

"We drank bumpers to Virginia, and made the ceiling shake with our mad laughter and revelry. In the midst of this, unluckily, the Chevalier de Vivancourt called for a bumper of mulled port. What fiend prompted a request so useless I cannot imagine: but we all joined in his demand vociferously; and the old dame, who appeared to have somewhat recovered her equanimity, desired her daughter to prepare it. She spoke in Basque Spanish, which we did not understand, but which should have been sufficient to kindle our suspicions; and I could perceive that a wild and almost insane expression flashed in the eyes of the little Donna Virginia as she flung aside her guitar and rose to execute the order.

"With some trouble she extricated herself from Chataigneur, whose arm was round her waist. He was very angry, and growled like a bear at the chevalier, swearing by the sabre de bois that he would put him under arrest for the trouble he occasioned.

"While he was yet speaking, Virginia returned with the prepared wine in a crystal vase, from which, with her own fair hands, she filled our long, carved glasses. We drank to her, draining them to the dregs; and, with a grim smile on her pallid lips, our youthful cupbearer replenished our glasses. The flavour of the wine was so exquisite, that Chataigneur embraced Virginia with drunken ardour, and desired her to bring us more.

"'You will require no more!' she cried, with a shriek, as she flung the vase from her hands, and it was dashed into a hundred pieces.

"We rose in alarm, but instantly sank again on our seats; and at that moment a peculiar and horrible sensation came over me. Sacre! methinks I feel it yet. I looked upon my companions of the carousal, but read in their faces an expression that yielded me anything but comfort. Three had dropped their glasses, and reclined upon their chairs, with open mouths and fixed eyes, which gleamed with the vacant wildness of insanity. The Chevalier de Vivancourt sank prostrate on the floor, while Chataigneur, who seemed also about to sink, turned and stared with a powerless aspect of rage and alarm at Donna Elvira.

"Virginia had sunk upon her knees and hid her face in the skirt of her torn dress; but her mother stood erect, and, with her arms outstretched towards us, shrieked in a frightful voice between a moan and a yell, while a murderous rage, alike fiendish and terrible, caused her tall form to tremble, her proud nostrils to dilate, and her large dark eyes to gleam like those of a rattlesnake.

"'At last we have avenged ourselves! Perros y ladrones! Frenchmen, dogs, and murderers, let me scream into your dying ears, that we are Castilian women, and have avenged our wrongs! I have lost my brave husband and his noble sons—by numbers you destroyed them, and side by side they fell on the palace threshold of the kings of Castile. Oh, bloodhounds—worse than devils in the form of men, ye murdered them, and now—my daughter (her voice became choked), my innocent little daughter—but we are revenged—revenged—revenged! Oh, Santa Maria, Virgin, y Madre de Jesu! let us be forgiven—but, fiends, the sure, cold hands of death are upon you—you are dying, for the wine you have drunk is poisoned!'

"Mon Dieu!" said St. Florian, pausing while the perspiration almost suffused his forehead, "still the screech-owl voice of that detestable hag seems to ring in my tingling ears!

"Inspired by terror and rage, I made an effort to spring up, to draw my sabre, to run her through the heart; but the moment my hand touched the hilt, a deadly numbness crept over me; I staggered backward, and while sleep and despair came over my soul, sank prone and insensible on the corpses of my comrades!"

St. Florian paused again for an instant, for he really seemed considerably excited by the recollection of the adventure.

"Parbleu! 'twas a most unpleasant denouement—a devil of a winding-up. Next morning I found my self lying prostrate on the chilly floor of the Church of the Conception, which, with many others, had been converted into a temporary hospital for the sick and wounded. I was sick for seventeen days, and my head ached as if it had been crushed in a vice; while my miserable throat was skinned by the stomach pump and other engines of the medical science, which the staff surgeon had kept at work on me, as they afterwards said, for two consecutive hours.

"Poor Jacques Chataigneur was in the same wretched condition, and lay opposite to me, kennelled on a bed of straw, under the gothic canopy which covered the grave perhaps of some long-bearded hidalgo of old Castile.

"We alone recovered.

"The gay Chevalier de Vivancourt and his three comrades of la Garde Imperiale died; so did poor Jean Graule and all our servants; for the little fury Virginia had administered part of her infernal potion to them too. So to this hour, my friend, I entertain such a horror of all kinds of prepared wine, that I may safely say, 'tis not in the power of man, or even woman, with all her superlative cunning and witchery, to make me taste a single drop that is not pure as when it came from the wine-press."

"And the ladies—what became of them?"

"Donna Elvira," continued my garrulous friend, "disappeared from Madrid on that very night, taking with her the unlucky Virginia, and for a time we heard no more of them, save in the columns of the 'Moniteur' and 'El Espanol,' where, the Lord knows, our malheur made more than noise enough! May mischief dog their heels as two revengeful vixens. But I afterwards learned that the girl assumed another name, and, bestowing her hand on a certain hidalgo of Alava, actually had the happiness to give me shelter one night on the retreat from Vittoria. My whiskers had grown, and she did not recognise me; sacre bleu, if she had! I was never discovered, and blessed my stars that I was sound, wind and limb, when I left her mansion in the morning—Ouf! let me think no more of it, for altogether 't is a story that makes me shudder."

"Excuse me, Captain St. Florian," said I, when he had ceased; "but on my honour, you make me blush for the army of France."

"Morbleu!" said he; "they were only Spaniards."

"But I have heard many an episode of horror blacker even than that of Donna Elvira, for I was one of those who followed up the retreating army of Massena, from the frontiers of Portuguese Estremadura, through desert fields and desolate cities, marked by fire and blood, and all that the wantonness and wickedness your devastators could inflict on a poor, a prostrate, and a defenceless people. I am warm, monsieur, but I pray you pardon me——"

"Ah! he was a stern old routier, Massena, and handled the dons so roughly, that the Emperor named him rightly the 'child of rapine.' I care not for being his apologist, as I never either loved or admired him, and once positively hated the old pagan, for reprimanding me in general orders, because, on our retreat from the lines of Torres Vedras, I neglected to destroy the house of a poor old hidalgo near Santarem, who had been so kind to me, that I omitted him in the list of devastations to be made by my foragers. Ouf! I got a lecture that was printed in the 'Moniteur,' and read at the head of every regiment in the division. But in revenge, that very night I affixed a scroll to the door of the marshal's quarters, saying—

"'This is the residence of the mighty Massena, Prince of Essling and Duke of Rivoli, who has made more noise in the world by beating the drum than by beating the British!'

"Corboeuf! what a frightful rage the old Turk was in, but he could never discover the author of the pasquil, which made him the laughing-stock of the whole army. But the sparing of that hidalgo's mansion and family was a most fortunate circumstance for me, as it was the means of saving my life three days after."

"In what manner?"

"He ransomed me for a hundred dollars from some rascally frontier guerillas who had captured me, and were on the point of putting me to death. Ouf! 'twas a devil of an adventure that. Shall I tell it you?"

"If you please," said I, lighting a fourth cigar.

"Well, then, listen, though perhaps it is not so much my story as that of a poor peasant whom the Estremadurans named Perez the Potter."

CHAPTER XXII.

PEREZ, THE POTTER; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT.

"When Massena retired before the impetuous advance of Lord Wellington, and left behind the boasted lines of Torres Vedras, you may remember that he selected the position of Santarem as one admirably adapted to keep in check the advance of your troops through the Portuguese frontier. While his division occupied their trenches on the hill above the Tagus, I was one day despatched on duty to the officer commanding the Cuirassier Brigade at Torres Novas, a town five leagues from Santarem, situated in the middle of a beautiful plain. It is surrounded by walls, and is overlooked by the castle with the nine towers, from which it takes its name.

"I rode without an orderly, or other followers, for the whole country was covered with our troops, and I had no dread of molestation, though desired by Marshal Massena to take with me a section of dragoons, as part of the country through which I had to pass was rendered very unsafe by the residence and outrages of a certain Don Julian d'Aviero, a half-mad student of Alcala, who had gathered a band of deserter guerillas, and become a captain of robbers in the woods of Santarem. There his name had become terrible through all the Spanish and Portuguese Estremaduras, Alentejo and Beira. His midnight expeditions and attacks upon the detached houses and solitary quintas of friend and foe were characterised by singular and wanton cruelty; and in a state of warfare, where the country was possessed by two hostile armies, the pretexts of treason and espionage were never wanting.

"A wild yell informed the inmates that their dwelling was surrounded by the banditti of Don Julian; the doors were dashed in; the men, half-starting from their beds, were hewn to pieces; their wives and daughters were dragged away to suffer worse than death; the houses were pillaged, and then reduced to ashes. And many of these atrocities were doubtless attributed by us to you, and by you to us. Captives were carried off daily, but they were generally ransomed; if not, a shot from a carbine, or a stab from a poniard, and all was over!

"I thought of all these things as I pursued my solitary way by the foot of the mountains that skirt the plain of Torres Novas; but it was with less of alarm than pleasure. To me there seemed something charming in the lonely and knight-errant-like fashion in which I had thus ridden forth, in a strange country, among dangerous ways, and an unscrupulous people, with neither friend nor ally save my sabre and horse.

"The sun was verging towards the darkening mountains of Alentejo; but the atmosphere was still exceedingly close and sultry, for, hot and bright, the rays of the western sun were poured from a clear and cloudless sky, scorching with their warmth the waving corn, and the myriads of wild flowers that covered the beautiful plain of Torres Novas.

"I was still far from the lines of Massena: the country seemed desolate and depopulated. I had no guide, and became apprehensive of losing my way, and wandering towards the British outposts. Once or twice I questioned a passing peasant, but was provoked by their sullenness and ignorance of their own locality.

"'Señor,' said I, to a paisano, whom I met driving two mules harnessed in a rude cart, which was simply composed of the rough stem of a tree, from which two branches in the form of a fork rested, one on each wheel, and formed the axle—'Señor, how many leagues is it from this place to Santarem?'

"'Three, señor Caballero,' replied the man, holding up three fingers.

"'Bueno! are they long or short?'

"'Short, señor.'

"There is, I know not why, a difference in the length of the Spanish leagues, as many a time and oft we found on the long line of march. After riding four or five miles further, and, being still uncertain, on meeting another peasant driving a borrico (an ass), laden with kid-skins of the mountain-wine, I inquired of him the distance from Santarem on the Tagus.

"'Five long leagues, señor,' he replied, displaying four fingers and a thumb.

"'Diable!' I muttered, and spurred on, for the sun had now sunk behind the blue waving line of the western Sierra.

"Near a roadside fountain I passed the bodies of three or four French soldiers, who had been wounded in a recent encounter with the outlaws of Julian Aviero, and had crawled there to quench their thirst and die. They had been completely stripped by the Spaniards, and their gory but honourable scars were blackening in the heat of the sultry day.

"On the velvet turf that bordered the road I softly drew up my horse, on observing behind the pedestal of the fountain a villanous son of Israel practising dental surgery, by robbing the jaws of the dead; for the soldiers being generally young men, their teeth brought a good price in the dentist shops of Paris and Madrid. I had frequently heard of this revolting practice, but never till that moment had ocular proof that such existed.

"The operator was a man about forty, lean and hollow-visaged, with the brow of a villain, the eyes of a snake, the nose of an eagle, and beard like a cossacque; he was enveloped in a loose blue gown, and his head was surmounted by a steeple-crowned sombrero, that had long lost every trace of its original colour. Near him lay a square mahogany box, like a pedlar's wallet, in which he carried his instruments and stock of dental wares.

"He was so busy with the relaxed jaws of a young soldier that he did not perceive my approach.

"You know how jealous we soldiers are of the treatment given to the remains of our dead comrades. Maladetto! my blood boiled. Dashing spurs into my horse, I plunged him right upon the dog of an Israelite; a kick from a hoof laid bare his skull, and stretched him prostrate on the earth. As he fell backwards I obtained a glimpse of his wallet, which bristled with poniards and pistols, from which I concluded him to be a robber of the living as well as of the dead; and I soon discovered my conclusions to be just.