"The 9th Hussars have obtained the unworthy reputation of being an ill-disciplined and ill-conducted regiment, relying upon their soldier-like qualities in face of the enemy to cover the disgrace of-their misconduct in quarters. This is a mistake that must be corrected. All Frenchmen are brave; none can arrogate to themselves any prerogative of valor. If any wish to establish such a belief, a campaign can always attest it. If any profess to think so without such proof, and acting in conformity with this impression, disobey their orders or infringe regimental discipline, I will have them shot. "REGNIER, "_Adjutant-general_." This was, at least, a very straight-forward and intelligible announcement, and as such my comrades generally acknowledged it. I, however regarded it as a piece of monstrous and intolerable tyranny, and sought to make converts to my opinion by declaiming about the rights of Frenchmen, the liberty of free discussion, the glorious privilege of equality, and so on; but these arguments sounded faint in presence of the drum-head; and while some slunk away from the circle around me, others significantly hinted that they would accept no part of the danger my doctrines might originate. However I might have respected my comrades, had they been always the well-disciplined body I now saw them, I confess, that this sudden conversion from fear, was in nowise to my taste, and rashly confounded their dread of punishment with a base and ignoble fear of death. "And these are the men," thought I, "who talk of their charging home through the dense squares of Austria--who have hunted the leopard into the sea! and have carried the flag of France over the high Alps!" A bold rebel, whatever may be the cause against which he revolts, will always be sure of a certain ascendency. Men are prone to attribute power to pretension, and he who stands foremost in the breach will at least win the suffrages of those whose cause he assumes to defend. In this way if happened that exactly as my comrades fell in my esteem, I was elevated in theirs; and while I took a very depreciating estimate of their courage, _they_ conceived a very exalted opinion of mine. It was altogether inexplicable to see these men, many of them the bronzed veterans of a dozen campaigns--the wounded and distinguished soldiers in many a hard-fought field, yielding up their opinions and sacrificing their convictions to a raw and untried stripling, who had never yet seen an enemy.