"To be sure," said the little fellow, who, I now perceived, wore the dress of a "tambour;" "and is it a disgrace to be the first to face the enemy?" "And the first to turn his back to him, comrade," cried another. "Not always--not always"--said the little fellow, regardless of the laugh against him. "Had it been so, I had not gained the battle of Grandrengs on the Sambre." "Thou gain a battle!" shouted half-a-dozen, in derisive laughter. "What, Petit Pierre gained the day at Grandrengs!" said the cannonier; "why, I was there myself, and never heard of that till now." "I can believe it well," replied Pierre; "many a man's merits go unacknowledged: and Kleber got all the credit that belonged to Pierre Canot." "Let us hear about it, Pierre, for even thy victory is unknown by name to us, poor devils of the army of Italy. How call'st thou the place?" "Grandrengs," said Pierre, proudly. "It's a name will live as long, perhaps, as many of those high-sounding ones you have favored us with. Mayhap, thou hast heard of Cambray?" "Never!" said the hussar, shaking his head. "Nor of 'Mons,' either, I'll be sworn?" continued Pierre. "Quite true, I never heard of it before." "Voila!" exclaimed Pierre, in contemptuous triumph. "And these are the fellows who pretend to feel their country's glory, and take pride in her conquests. Where hast thou been, lad, not to hear of places that every child syllables nowadays?" "I will tell you where I've been," said the hussar, haughtily, and dropping at the same time the familiar "thee" and "thou" of soldier intercourse--"I've been at Montenotte, at Millesimo, at Mondove--" "Allons, done! with your disputes," broke in an old grenadier; "as if France was not victorious whether the enemies were English or German. Let us hear how Pierre won his battle--at--at--" "At Grandrengs," said Pierre. "They call it in the dispatch the 'action of the Sambre,' because Kleber came up there--and Kleber being a great man, and Pierre Canot a little one, you understand, the glory attaches to the place where the bullion epaulets are found--just as the old King of Prussia used to say, 'Dieu est toujours a cote de gros bataillons.'" "I see we'll never come to this same victory of Grandrengs, with all these turnings and twistings," muttered the artillery sergeant.