Twice we attempted to storm the ascent; but, wearied by the labor of the mountain pass--worn out by fatigue--and, worse still, weak from actual starvation, our men faltered! It was not fear, nor was there any thing akin to it; for even as they fell under the thick fire, their shrill cheers breathed stern defiance. They were utterly exhausted, and failing strength could do no more! De Barre took the lead, sword in hand, and with one of those wild appeals, that soldiers never hear in vain, addressed them; but the next moment his shattered corpse was carried to the rear. The scaling party, alike repulsed, had now defiled to our support; but the death-dealing artillery swept through us without ceasing. Never was there a spectacle so terrible, as to see men, animated by courageous devotion, burning with glorious zeal, and yet powerless from very debility--actually dropping from the weakness of famine! The staggering step--the faint shout--the powerless charge--all showing the ravages of pestilence and want! Some sentiment of compassion must have engaged our enemies' sympathy, for twice they relaxed their fire, and only resumed it as we returned to the attack. One fearful discharge of grape, at pistol range, now seemed to have closed the struggle; and as the smoke cleared away, the earth was seen crowded with dead and dying. The broken ranks no longer showed discipline--men gathered in groups around their wounded comrades, and, to all seeming, indifferent to the death that menaced them. Scarcely an officer survived, and, among the dead beside me, I recognized Giorgio, who still knelt in the attitude in which he had received his death-wound. I was like one in some terrible dream, powerless and terror-stricken, as I stood thus amid the slaughtered and the wounded. "You are my prisoner," said a gruff-looking old Croat grenadier, as he snatched my sword from my hand, by a smart blow on the wrist, and I yielded without a word. "Is it over?" said I; "is it over?" "Yes, parbleu, I think it is," said a comrade, whose cheek was hanging down from a bayonet wound. "There are not twenty of us remaining, and _they_ will do very little for the service of the 'Great Republic.'" (TO BE CONTINUED.) FRENCH COTTAGE COOKERY. I had frequently remarked a neat little old woman, in a clean, stiff-starched, quilted cap, going to and from a neighboring chapel, without however its ever coming into my head to ask who she was; until one day a drove of oxen alarmed her so visibly, that I opened the gate of my little garden, and begged her to remain there in safety till the cattle had passed by. "Madame is very polite; she has no doubt been in France?" "Yes," answered I in her native language, "I resided there many years, and perceive I have the pleasure of addressing a Frenchwoman."