“‘From such reasoning there was no appeal, and poor Eugène remained at the _Séminaire_, cursing his fate, and nursing his bitterness against the existing order of things, which thus left him helpless and without defence, the slave of another’s will, to follow the very calling he so much despised. You will readily believe that, with these sentiments, he was one of those who yielded the most readily to the influence of the new doctrines which the philosophers of that day had begun to preach with so much success. He had frequently been severely reprimanded, and sometimes even harshly punished for his undisguised approval of the new tenets, for among his class-fellows, he sought not to conceal his sentiments, but proclaimed aloud his contempt of the aristocracy, his hatred of the oppressors of the people, his opinion that the king would one day be taken to task for his weak administration; and, above all, his tongue waged loudest war against the queen, poor Marie Antoinette, ‘_Autrichienne_,’ _l’étrangère_, the ‘cruel she-wolf,’ the heartless dissipator of the _deniers du peuple_. “‘He left the _Séminaire_ with these feelings still existing; he was much younger than myself, and I lost sight of him for some time; I only heard accidentally that he had been appointed to serve one of the chapels of Notre Dame, merely while awaiting a vacancy to occur in some rich prebend or fat abbaye, to which his father might have credit to get him appointed. Meanwhile, the revolution broke out, and Eugène stood free to take the path from which he had been forcibly driven while dependent on his father’s will. Of course, after what I knew of his character, it did not in the least surprise me to learn that he had thrown his frock _aux orties_, or that he had chosen to enter the army; but what really did surprise me to a great degree was the astounding information which was given me by his brother, the Marquis de B——, that he had attached himself to the broken remnants of the _gardes-du-corps_; that he had followed them most pertinaciously as a volunteer; that he had twice been severely wounded in defending the queen from the fury of the mob; and that he was the individual who had carried the dauphin, at the very risk and peril of his life, across the Allée des Feuillans, on the day of the memorable attack! “‘And what became of him after this?’ inquired I of his brother, already in my own mind anticipating the answer, for there were but few of those who had made themselves the least conspicuous in the like manner who escaped.