At Castle Sarazin we used to be on our usual excellent terms with the French quartered in the neighbourhood, and to while away the time had constant matches with them in running, jumping, and gymnastic exercises. I got acquainted here with a very smart fellow—a French sergeant belonging to the 43rd regiment. A friendship was cemented between us, naturally enough, by our both being free-masons. One day we were sitting in a wine-house, when the subject of fencing—a science at which the French prize themselves in excelling—was started. My friend, the sergeant, was observing he was a tolerable hand with the foil, when a short lump of a fellow, who proved to be the fencing-master of the town, overhearing him, immediately challenged him to a trial of skill. This the sergeant in an instant accepted, and the sport, at which he showed himself a perfect adept, at the fencing-master’s cost, was carried on with perfect good-humour, until a fierce dispute arose about a hit, when it was mutually agreed to determine the controversy with points. A pair of foils with sharpened points, kept for this particular service were immediately produced, while the by-standers instantly commenced betting upon the combatants with all the _sang froid_ in the world. Both had taken off their coats and bared their right arms for the strife, when—I am sorry to disappoint the reader, who may expect an account of a duel—our guard, which some good-natured soul had privately summoned, came in and put an end to the affair, greatly to the chagrin of the sergeant, who swore he would have killed the professor on the spot. That same evening the sergeant, whose name, in the lapse of years, I have forgotten, went to our Colonel and obtained leave for me to visit him at Montauban, where his regiment, the 43rd, was quartered. He had invited a corporal, myself, and another, to a dinner given by the non-commissioned officers of his regiment. On the day appointed away we started, Gilbert, the corporal, and myself. I shall never forget it. It was a fine morning. After crossing the Garonne in open boats, for the bridge had been destroyed previous to the battle of Toulouse, we entered Montauban, and found the 43rd and two other regiments forming a brigade, drawn up on parade in the square of the town, and two splendid bands playing in front.