Near our poor and obscure camp was another which was brilliant and rich. At the staff, one saw nothing but wagons full of eatables, met with none save cooks, valets, aides-de-camp. Nothing could have better reproduced the Court and the provinces, the monarchy expiring at Versailles and the monarchy dying on Du Guesclin's heaths. We had grown to hate the aides-de-camp; whenever there was an engagement outside Thionville, we shouted, "Forward, the aides-de-camp!" just as the patriots used to shout, "Forward, the officers!" I felt a chill at my heart when, arriving one dark day in sight of some woods that lined the horizon, we were told that those woods were in France. To cross the frontier of my country in arms had an effect upon me which I am unable to convey. I had, as it were, a sort of revelation of the future, inasmuch as I shared none of my comrades' illusions, either with regard to the cause they were supporting or the thoughts of triumph with which they deluded themselves: I was there like Falkland[86] in the army of Charles I. There was not a Knight of the Mancha, sick, lame, wearing a night-cap under his three-cornered beaver, but was most firmly convinced of his ability, unaided, to put fifty young and vigorous patriots to flight. This honourable and agreeable pride, at another time the source of prodigies, had not attacked me: I did not feel so sure of the strength of my invincible arm. We reached Thionville unconquered on the 1st of September; for we had met nobody on the road. The cavalry encamped to the right, the infantry to the left of the high-road running from the town towards Germany. The fortress was not visible from the camping-ground, but, six hundred paces ahead, one came to the ridge of a hill whence the eye swept the Valley of the Moselle. The mounted men of the navy joined the right of our infantry to the Austrian corps of the Prince of Waldeck[87], while the left of the infantry was covered by 1800 horse of the Maison-Rouge and Royal German Regiments. We entrenched our front with a fosse, along which the arms were stalked in line. The eight Breton companies occupied two intersecting streets of the camp, and below us was dressed the company of the Navarre officers, my former messmates.