hundred prisoners, and fourteen pieces of artillery were captured. “I sat upon the carriage of a gun, my face begrimed with powder, and my uniform blackened and blood-stained. The whole thing appeared like some shocking dream. I felt a hand upon my shoulder, while a rough voice called in my ear, ‘_Capitaine du soixante-neuvième, tu es mon frère!_’ “It was Ney who spoke. This,” added the brave captain, his eyes filling as he said the words,--“this is the sabre he gave me.” I know not why I have narrated this anecdote; it has little in itself, but somehow, to me it brings back in all its fulness the recollection of that night. There was something so strongly characteristic of the old Napoleonist in the tone of his narrative that I listened throughout with breathless attention. I began to feel too, for the first time, what a powerful arm in war the Emperor had created by fostering the spirit of individual enterprise. The field thus opened to fame and distinction left no bounds to the ambition of any. The humble conscript, as he tore himself from the embraces of his mother, wiped his tearful eyes to see before him in the distance the bâton of a marshal. The bold soldier who stormed a battery felt his heart beat more proudly and more securely beneath the cordon of the Legion than behind a cuirass of steel; and to a people in whom the sense of duty alone would seem cold, barren, and inglorious, he had substituted a highly-wrought chivalrous enthusiasm; and by the _prestige_ of his own name, the proud memory of his battles, and the glory of those mighty tournaments at which all Europe were the spectators, he had converted a nation into an army. By a silent and instinctive compact we appeared to avoid those topics of the campaign in which the honor of our respective arms was interested; and once, when, by mere accident, the youngest of the party adverted to Fuentes d’Onoro, the old captain adroitly turned the current of the conversation by saying, “Come, Alphonse, let’s have a song.” “Yes,” said the other. “_Les Pas de Charge_.” “No, no,” said the captain; “if I am to have a choice, let it be that little Breton song you gave us on the Danube.” “So be it then,” said Alphonse. “Here goes!” I have endeavored to convey, by a translation, the words he sang; but I feel conscious how totally their feeling and simplicity are lost when deprived of their own _patois_, and the wild but touching melody that accompanied them. THE BRETON HOME. When the battle is o’er, and the sounds of fight Have closed with the closing day, How happy around the watch-fire’s light To chat the long hours away; To chat the long hours away, my boy, And talk of the days to come, Or a better still and a purer joy, To think of our far-off home.