was, my body felt the benefit of unusual abstinence from deep potations, late hours, and sustained dissipation. The large amount of foot-exercise I took during these few weeks, doubtless contributed also to restore tone and vigour to a constitution which my dissolute career, however mad and reckless, had not been long enough seriously to impair. When weary of my lonesome attic, I would start through the nearest barrier, avoiding the streets and districts where I might encounter former acquaintances, and take long walks in the environs of Paris, returning with an appetite that gave a relish even to the tough and unsavoury viands of a cheap _traiteur_. “It chanced, upon a certain day, when striding along the road to Orleans, that I met a regiment of hussars changing their quarters from that town to Paris. The morning sun shone brightly on their accoutrements; the hoofs of their well-groomed horses rang upon the frosty road; the men, closely wrapped in their warm pelisses, looked cheerful, in good case, and in high spirits at the prospect of a sojourn in the capital. I seated myself upon a gate to see them pass, and could not avoid making a comparison between my position and that of a private dragoon, which resulted considerably to my disadvantage. I was not then so well aware as I have since become, of all the hardships and disagreeables of a soldier’s life; and it appeared to me that these fellows, well clothed, well mounted, and with their daily wants provided for, were perfect kings compared to a useless, homeless, destitute being like myself. Their profession was an honourable one; their regiment was their home; they had comrades and friends; and their duty as soldiers properly done, none could reproach or oppress them. The column marched by, and was succeeded by the rearguard, half-a-dozen smart, sunburned hussars, with carbine on thigh; one of whom sang, in a mellow tenor voice, and with considerable taste, the well-known soldier’s song out of _La Dame Blanche_. In their turn, they disappeared behind a bend of the road; but the spirited burthen of the ditty still reached my ears after they were lost to my view— ‘Ah, quel plaisir! ah, quel plaisir! Ah, quel plaisir d’être soldat!’ “I repeated to myself, as the last notes died in the distance, and jumping off the gate, I turned my steps towards Paris, my mind strongly inclining to the sabre and worsted lace.