"You will now have a good despatch to transmit to our friends in England. The Count Clairfait has shown himself worthy of his reputation. I understand that the enemy's force consisted chiefly of the household troops of France; if so, we have beaten the best soldiers of the kingdom, and the rest can give us but little trouble. You will remark upon these points; and now for Paris." A cry, or rather a shout of assent from the circle of officers, echoed the words, and we all put spurs to our horses, and followed the _cortege_ through the noble old groves. But before we reached its confines, the firing had wholly ceased, and the enemy were hurrying down the slope of the Argonne, and crossing in great disorder a plain which separated them from their main body. Our light troops and cavalry were dashing in pursuit, and prisoners were continually taken. From the spot where we halted, the light of the sinking day showed us the rapid breaking up of the fugitive column, the guns, one by one, left behind; the muskets thrown away; and the soldiers scattered, until our telescopes could discover scarcely more than a remnant reaching the protection of the distant hill. We supped that night on the green sward. The duke had invited his own staff, and that of Clairfait, to his tent, in honour of the day, and I never spent a gayer evening. His incomparable finish of manners, mingled with the cordiality which no man could more naturally assume when it was his pleasure, and his mixture of courtly pleasantry with the bold humour which campaigning, in some degree, teaches to every one, made him, if possible, more delightful, to my conception, than even in our first interview. Towards the close of the supper, which, like every thing else round him, was worthy of Sardanapalus, he addressed himself to me, and giving a most gracious personal opinion of what my "services had merited from the English minister," said that, "limited as his own means of rewarding zeal and ability might be, he begged of me to retain a slight memorial of his friendship, and of our day together on the heights of Argonne." Taking from the hand of Guiscard the riband and star of the "Order of Merit," the famous order instituted by the Great Frederic, he placed it round my neck, and proposed my health to the table as a "Knight of Prussia."