"His aide-de-camp, a French officer, young, and equally brave, strove to imitate his example: spurring his horse up the rocks, he rushed from the gloomy dell and emerged suddenly, almost at my feet. How terrible was his aspect! at this moment I can behold him: the panting horse, with starting eyes, erect mane, and snorting nostrils; the breathless rider, bareheaded and pale—his face streaked with blood—his broken sabre gleaming in his hand. "’France! France!—vive l’Empereur!" cried he, and was dashing on, when a stray bullet struck his horse; it plunged wildly forward and rolled dead on the turf, hurling its rider at my feet. The next moment my knee was upon his breast, and my sabre at his throat: his sword arm was broken—he was powerless. "’Ruffian!’ he exclaimed, ’would you slay me in cold blood?’ "’As your countrymen slew my sons,’ was my fierce rejoinder: he saw but little mercy in my aspect at that moment. "’Old man,’ said he, with a faltering voice, ’if you are indeed a father, spare me for my father’s sake, if you will not for my own!’ "’So pleaded my sons, perhaps—but no! they would have scorned to ask mercy of a Frenchman. Enough, young man; with me you are safe: like yourself, I am an officer, and will do nothing that is unworthy of a gentleman.’ I assisted him to rise. ’Your name, signor?’ "’Phillipe Regnier, a lieutenant of the First Regiment—the favourite corps of Napoleon.’ "’Would you had some other name than that of our accursed persecutor.’ "’Beware, sir!’ exclaimed the other haughtily; ’if you mean Regnier, Chevalier of the Iron Crown, and general of division under the Emperor—he is my father.’ "’It is enough,’ I replied. ’Young man, he is our deadly enemy: yet I will say nought to which his son may not listen with an unruffled brow; but, as you value life, utter not his name in the hearing of an Italian. You must be aware of the necessity for this.’ "He bowed. To preserve him from the fury of the followers of Francatripa, I conveyed him to my house, which was not far distant. Night had descended on the unfinished work of death, and we retired unseen. The poor French youth was deeply grateful for my care: he suffered acutely from his broken arm and a wound on the head, where a ball had laid bare the temple; fever ensued, he grew worse daily, and was brought almost to the brink of the grave: yet I dared not bring him any medical assistance. Had the secret of his dwelling at my house been noised abroad, his doom had been sealed as a Frenchman, and mine as a traitor: my house would have been levelled to the ground. He had no other nurse or attendant than my poor little daughter.—Signori, spare the tears and blushes of my dear Luisa, by imagining the rest. Both were young, handsome, and ardent: too much so to be thrown so entirely together, and left so much in each other’s society; as our secluded habitation, and my long and frequent absences, compelled them to be.