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."