Whilst my father was taking Mont Cenis, another column of the Army of the Alps crossed the pass of Argentière, near Barcelonnette, seized the post at the Barricades, invaded the valley of la Hure, and thereby put the Army of the Alps in close connection with the Army of Italy, the extreme left arm of which had advanced as far as the little village of Isola, near San-Dalmatio-Salvatico. My father had just reached the stage at which the commanding generals of the Army of the Alps were recalled to be guillotined. He expected this reward, and he was not therefore surprised to receive this communication:-- _6th Messidor, Year II._ "CITIZEN GENERAL,--You are commanded to leave the Army of the Alps instantly and to present yourself in Paris, to answer the accusations which are being made against you." "COLLOT D'HERBOIS." The accusations, or rather the accusation, which my father had to answer was this: My father had entered the little village of St. Maurice in mid-winter. The first thing he saw in the open square of the village was a guillotine ready prepared for an execution. He was informed that four wretched men were going to be executed for trying to steal and smelt down the church clock. The crime did not seem to my father deserving of the penalty of death, and he turned to Captain Dermoncourt--the same who was soon to become his aide-de-camp:-- "Dermoncourt," he said to him, "it is horribly cold, as you can see and feel for yourself; we may not find any wood where we are going, let that devilish red-coloured machine you see there be pulled down and taken away to make firewood for us." Dermoncourt, accustomed to implicit obedience, obeyed implicitly. This proceeding, put into execution with truly military rapidity, very much embarrassed the executioner, who had four men to guillotine and no longer a guillotine to do it with. My father, perceiving the poor man's dilemma, took pity on him, relieved him of his four prisoners, gave him a quittance for them, and let them go, with the advice to flee to the mountains as fast as their legs could carry them. It need hardly be said that the prisoners did not wait for a second bidding. By nothing short of a miracle my father escaped paying for the four heads he had saved by his own; but, thanks to his conquest of the St. Bernard, of Valaisan, and of Mont Cenis, he was pardoned for this insult to patriotism. But the nickname of "M. de l'Humanité" was now more applicable than ever, and was more often than ever applied to him. I have already said how lucky my father was. CHAPTER VI The result of a sword-stroke across the head--St. Georges and the remounts--The quarrel he sought with my father--My father is transferred to the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse--He hands in his resignation and returns to Villers-Cotterets--A retrospect over what had happened at home and abroad during the four years that had just elapsed.