The first night, we dined together, and shared a bottle of very good wine, which he, either by prescience or memory, recommended as the best which the house could afford. We talked of the town, and of that part of France, and of La Vendee, and in the end, finding I was curious about relics of the ancient times, he offered to take me to some curious places in the vicinity of the town. On the following morning we set out in a carriage from the inn—and here let me notice his scrupulous exactness in paying his precise share of every expense incurred. He never sought to pay more, but would never consent to pay less. On our return, our conversation naturally fell upon all we had seen. We talked of the Chouans, and the Vendean war, and all the gallant deeds that were done in those days, and from that we turned to the Revolutionary history in general, and especially to the campaigns of Massena, and the Arch-Duke Charles, and Suwarow in Lombardy and Switzerland. He gave me a number of curious anecdotes of those personages, and especially of Suwarow, whom he told me he had himself seen leading on a charge, with a jockey-cap upon his head, a switch in his hand, a boot upon one leg, and a silk stocking on the other. “Those were strange times,” he said, “and many of the greatest, and most striking events in history which occurred about that time, are already hardly remembered, from the fact that so many marvelous actions were crowded into so short a space of time, as hardly to leave room to see or to collect them. I was about thirty at the time of that terrible struggle in Switzerland,” he added, “and my memory is quite perfect upon the subject; but when I talk with other people upon those things, and especially with historians, they know little or nothing about them.” “You must have gone through some strange adventures, I should think,” I answered. “Oh dear no,” he replied, “my life has been an exceedingly quiet and tranquil one; but if you are curious about that period of history, I have got a manuscript which fell into my hands accidentally, giving some interesting particulars of a young man’s life in those days. There is a good deal of nonsensical sentimentality in it, but it may amuse you, and if you like to take the trouble to read it, I will lend it to you.” I accepted his offer right willingly, but the conversation turned soon to other things, and he and I both forgot the manuscript that night. On the following day, at breakfast, he announced to me that he was going to start by the Diligence at noon, for Nantes, Bordeaux, and Madrid. I laughingly asked what would become of my reading the manuscript then. “Oh, you shall have it! You shall have it,” he answered. “We shall meet again I dare say, and then you can give it back to me.”