We had tents; we lacked all beside. Our muskets, of German make, trumpery weapons and frightfully heavy, broke our shoulders, and were often not in a condition to be fired. I went through the whole campaign with one of these firelocks, the hammer of which refused to fall. We remained two days at Trèves. It was a great pleasure to me to see Roman ruins after having seen the nameless ruins of Ohio, to visit that town so often sacked, of which Salvianus[82] said: "O fugitives from Trèves, you ask again for theatres, you demand a circus of the princes: for what State, I pray you; for what people, for what city? _Theatra igitur quæritis, circum a principibus postulatis? Cui, quæso, statut, cui populo, cui civitati?_" Fugitives from France, where was the people for which we wished to restore the monuments of St. Louis? I sat down, with my musket, among the ruins; I took from my knapsack the manuscript of my travels in America; I arranged the separate sheets on the grass around me; I read over and corrected a description of a forest, a passage of _Atala_, in the fragments of a Roman amphitheatre, preparing in this way to make the conquest of France. Then I put away my treasure, the weight of which, combined with that of my shirts, my cloak, my tin can, my wicker bottle, and my little Homer, made me throw up blood. I tried to stuff _Atala_ into my cartridge-box with my useless ammunition; my comrades made fun of me, and pulled at the sheets which stuck out on either side of the leather cover. Providence came to my rescue: one night, after sleeping in a hay-loft, I found, when I woke, that my shirts were no longer in my sack; the thieves had left the papers. I praised God: that accident assured my "fame" and saved my life, for the sixty pounds that pressed upon my shoulders would have driven me into a consumption. "How many shirts have I?" asked Henry IV. of his body-servant. "One dozen, Sire, and some of them are torn." "And of handkerchiefs, is it not eight that I have?" "There are only five left now." The Bearnese won the Battle of Ivry[83] without shirts; the loss of mine did not enable me to restore his kingdom to his descendants. * We received orders to march on Thionville. We did five to six leagues a day. The weather was terrible; we tramped through the rain and slush singing, _Ô Richard! ô mon roi!_ and _Pauvre Jacques!_[84] On arriving at the encamping-place, having neither wagons nor provisions, we went with donkeys, which followed the column like an Arab caravan, to hunt for food in the farms and villages. We paid for everything scrupulously; nevertheless I had to do fatigue duty for taking two pears from the garden of a country-house without thinking. A great steeple, a great river and a great lord are bad neighbours, says the proverb.