And for what did they bleed? For what did they fall?--the heroes of that splendid field of carnage?--to be forgotten! To have their bones turned up and ground by the iron of the plough, and their unhonoured dust trodden by the peasant's heel. The knight's sword rusting in peace beside his enemy's corslet, and the ashes of the coward and the brave amicably mingling in their native earth. To be forgotten! Their very burial-place unknown, but to the hind whose ground they fattened with their blood, and the pale antiquary who rakes amongst their bones for something ancient! The deeds that, even in dying, they fondly fancied would be immortal, overwhelmed beneath the lumber of history, or blotted out by fresher comments on the same bloody theme! The names they thought engraved deep in the column of Fame, erased by Time's sure destroying hand! The thrones they fought for and the realms they won, past unto other dynasties; and all the object of their mighty daring as unachieved as if they had not been! Such is the history of every field of battle.[7] -------------------- [Footnote 7: I have left the above passage exactly as it was written many years ago, though I perceive that the same ideas have returned to me in writing another work, and have clothed themselves in very nearly the same language. I did not perceive the fact till one work was printed and the other in the press; but the accident was sufficiently interesting to me to leave the passage here, where I could blot it out.] ------------------- THE DILIGENCE. By this time we had given up the system of posting, A man who does not travel in the diligence loses one half of what he ought to see. From Poitiers to Angoulême, we had two places in the _coupée_, or front part. Our companion was a tall, good-looking man, who at first did not make any great show of politeness. He had been a military man, and perhaps took us for what French soldiers were accustomed to call Pekins. Marshal ---- once being invited to dine with Talleyrand, was much after the hour appointed. "We have waited for you, sir," said Talleyrand, on his arrival. The marshal said he could not help it, that he had been detained by a Pekin, just as he was going out. "What do you call a Pekin?" asked the statesman. "Nous appelons Pekin," replied the marshal, "tout ce qui n'est pas militaire." "C'est comme nous," said Talleyrand coolly: "nous appelons militaire, tout ce qui n'est pas civil."