He seemed to shrink from me, and crouch close to the ground, in order to get away from his murderer. Filial affection, and the confidence and repose of a delicious sleep pervaded his lifeless face, and he seemed to say to me, 'Let us sleep in peace!' "At this moment, the colonel entered, followed close by his column, whose step and arms I heard. "'Bravo, my dear fellow,' said he, 'you've done that job cleverly; but you are wounded!' "'Look there,' said I; 'what difference is there between me and a murderer?' "'Eh! _Sacre dieu!_ comrade, what would you have? 'Tis our trade!'" Great God! what a trade for men to give themselves up to, for considerations of all kinds, from peerages and pensions down to a shilling a day. Legalized murder as a profession for the poor foster-children of passive obedience, who, when they trust themselves to think, sometimes find themselves--and upon their own showing, too--little better than murderers. Poor Captain Renaud, however, continued in the service still. So thoroughly was the man smothered in the soldier, that neglect, contempt, contumely, and the sensations of a homicide were not sufficient to induce him to break his fetters. After Napoleon's fall, he remained a soldier of the Bourbons, and there was a sort of poetical justice in his death; for in the sanguinary revolution of 1830 a _gamin de Paris_, a boy scarcely able to hold a horse-pistol, shot the veteran of the Empire. M. de Vigny closes his portion of the "Lights and Shades" by setting up an idol for soldiers to worship, and which is to sustain them under all their sufferings. The profession of arms has lost the attribute of apparent usefulness which once belonged to it. The star of glory is setting below the horizon of peace; and warriors, knowing themselves at once hated and feared--feeling themselves out of place in the era which is beginning--degraded from heroes into policemen--are to lean upon HONOR for support; but we think, that in the midst of obloquy, privation, and neglect, that sentiment will prove but a broken staff, incapable of bearing such a load of misery and wrong. THE FACTORY BOY. BY HARRIET MARTINEAU. In the middle of a dark night, Joel, a boy of nine years old, heard his name called by a voice which, through his sleep, seemed miles away. Joel had been tired enough when he went to bed, and yet he had not gone to sleep for some time; his heart beat so at the idea of his mother being very ill. He well remembered his father's death, and his mother's illness now revived some feelings which he had almost forgotten. His bed was merely some clothes spread on the floor, and covered with a rug; but he did not mind that; and he could have gone to sleep at once but for the fear that had come over him. When he did sleep, his sleep was sound; so that his mother's feeble voice calling him seemed like a call from miles away. In a minute Joel was up and wide awake. "Light the candle," he could just hear the voice say.