Yet what, as the poet Saadi says, is fortune but a peacock "a showy tail on a frightful pair of legs?" Our triumph was to be followed by a reverse. The burgundy and champagne of the old count's cellar had made us festive, and our voices were heard along the road with a gaiety imprudent in a hostile land. The sound of a trumpet in our front brought us to our senses and a dead stand. But we were in a vein of heroism and instead of taking to our old hussar habits, and slipping round the enemy's flanks, we determined to cut our way through them, if they had the whole cavalry of France as their _appui_. The word was given, and the spur carried us through a strong line of cavalry posted across the road. The moon had just risen enough to show that there was a still stronger line a few hundred yards beyond, which it would be folly to touch. There was now no resource but to return as we went, which we did at full speed, and again broke up our antagonists. But again we saw squadron after squadron blocking up the road. All was now desperate. But Frederick's law of arms was well known--"the officer of cavalry who _waits to be charged_, must be broke." We made a plunge at our living circumvallation; but the French dragoons had now learned common sense--they opened for us--and when we were once fairly in, enveloped us completely; it was then a troop to a brigade; fifty jaded men and horses to fifteen hundred fresh from camp. What happened further I know not. I saw for a minute or two a great deal of pistol firing and a great deal of sabre clashing; I felt my horse stagger under me, at the moment when I aimed a blow at a gigantic fellow covered all over with helmet and mustache; a pistol exploded close at my ear as I was going down, and I heard no more. On opening my eyes again, I found the scene strangely altered. I was lying in a little chamber hung round with Parisian ornament--a sufficient contrast to a sky dark as pitch, or only illumined by carbines and the sparkles of sabres delving at each other. I was lying on an embroidered sofa--an equally strong contrast to my position under the bodies of fallen men and the heels of kicking horses. A showy Turkish cloak, or _robe de chambre_, had superseded my laced jacket, purple pantaloons, and hussar boots. I was completely altered as a warrior; and, from a glimpse which I cast on a mirror, surrounded with gilt nymphs and swains enough to have furnished a ballet, I saw in my haggard countenance, and a wound, which a riband but half concealed, across my forehead, that I was not less altered as a man.