Monsieur de Villardin now found that it was no longer a time for hesitation, and that if all the royalists remained inactive, the constitution of the country itself must be overthrown. The greater part of the regiment which had served with him at Bordeaux had been again collected by his orders in Brittany; three or four more troops were easily raised in the Orleanois; the whole had been more perfectly disciplined during the time he had remained in inactivity than they had ever been before, and the moment that he heard of the general revolt, he despatched couriers to the Court at Poitiers, to announce that he was on his march to support its cause, with an effective force of twelve hundred men. This reinforcement was a matter of no small consequence to a royal army in those days; and the pleasure that this news occasioned to the young King and his Court was greatly increased from the circumstances of the time at which Monsieur de Villardin's declaration arrived, and from the hope it held out of others following his example. A new era was now opening for me. One of the troops of Monsieur de Villardin's regiment, raised by the authority of the King himself, had been given to me, and the high road to honour and promotion was now thrown wide before me. The political events which I have narrated above had occupied a considerable space of time, so that I was now more than seventeen. The little property which the kindness of Lord Masterton and of Monsieur de Villardin had bestowed upon me, was more than sufficient for all my wants and wishes; my troop was as fine and well disciplined a one as any in the service; and on the twenty-eighth of February I commenced my march with Monsieur de Villardin, full of all the hopes of youth, although I had been prematurely taught the experience of manhood. I do not know that such a combination of the two is either pleasant or beneficial to him who possesses them; and I do believe that nature's plan is the best, in joining youthful inexperience to youthful passions. For my own part, I may safely say, that having by the circumstances of my early days been carried too far forward all through life, I have always found that it was painful to be older than one's years.