An army is generally composed of soldiers of nearly the same age, the same height, the same strength. Very different was ours, a jumbled gathering of grown men, old men, children fresh from the dovecot, jabbering Norman, Breton, Picard, Auvergnat, Gascon, Provençal, Languedocian. A father served with his sons, a father-in-law with his son-in-law, an uncle with his nephews, a brother with a brother, a cousin with a cousin. This _arrière ban_, ridiculous as it appeared, had something honourable and touching about it, because it was animated with sincere convictions; it presented the spectacle of the old monarchy and afforded a last glimpse of a dying world. I have seen old noblemen, with stern looks, grey hair, torn coats, knapsack on back, musket slung over the shoulder, drag themselves along with a stick and supported by the arm by one of their sons; I have seen M. de Boishue, the father of my schoolfellow killed at the States of Rennes in my sight, march solitary and sad, with his bare feet in the mud, carrying his shoes at the point of his bayonet for fear of wearing them out; I have seen young wounded men lie under a tree, while a chaplain, in surtout and stole, knelt by their side, sending them to St. Louis, whose heirs they had striven to defend. The whole of this needy band, which received not a sou from the Princes, made war at its own expense, while the decrees finished despoiling it and threw our wives and mothers into prison. The old men of former times were less unhappy and less lonely than those of to-day: if, in lingering upon earth, they had lost their friends, there was but little changed around them besides; they were strangers to youth, but not to society. Nowadays, a lagger in this world has witnessed the death not only of men, but of ideas: principles, manners, tastes, pleasures, pains, opinions, none of these resemble what he used to know. He belongs to a race different from that among which he ends his days. [Sidenote: Old France.] And yet, O nineteenth-century France, learn to prize that old France which was as good as you. You will grow old in your turn and you will be accused, as we were accused, of clinging to obsolete ideas. The men whom you have vanquished are your fathers; do not deny them, you are sprung from their blood. Had they not been generously faithful to the ancient traditions, you would not have drawn from that native fidelity the energy which has been the cause of your glory in the new traditions: between the old France and the new, all that has happened is a transformation of virtue. *