"The time had come to part. The brothers-in-arms bade each other a last farewell, and took different roads on earth. All, before setting out, went to salute their father and captain, white-haired old Condé: the patriarch of glory gave his blessing to his children, wept over his dispersed tribe, and saw the tents of his camp fall with the grief of a man witnessing the destruction of his ancestral roof[125]." Less than twenty years later, the leader of the new French Army, Bonaparte, also took leave of his companions: so quickly do men and empires pass, so little does the most extraordinary renown save one from the most common destiny! We left Verdun. The rains had broken up the roads; everywhere one saw ammunition-wagons, gun-carriages, cannon stuck in the mire, chariots overturned, cutler-women with their children on their backs, soldiers dying or dead in the mud. Crossing a ploughed field, I sank down to my knees; Ferron and another comrade dragged me out despite myself: I begged them to leave me there; I had rather died. On the 16th of October, at the camp near Longwy, the captain of my company, M. de Goyon-Miniac, handed me a very honourable certificate. At Arlon, we saw a file of wagons with their teams on the high-road: the horses, some standing, others kneeling down, others with their noses on the ground, were dead, and their bodies had grown stiff between the shafts: it was as though one saw the shades of a battlefield bivouacking on the shores of Styx. Ferron asked me what I meant to do, and I answered that, if I could go as far as Ostend, I would take ship for Jersey, where I should find my uncle de Bedée; from there I should be able to join the Royalists in Brittany. [Sidenote: And catch the smallpox.] The fever was sapping my strength; I could only with difficulty support myself on my swollen thigh. I felt a new ailment lay hold of me. After twenty-four hours' vomiting, my face and body were covered with an eruption: confluent smallpox broke out; it appeared to be affected by the temperature of the air. In this condition, I set out on foot to make a journey of two hundred leagues, rich as I was to the extent of eighteen livres Tournois: all this for the greater glory of the Monarchy. Ferron, who had lent me my six small crowns of three francs, left me, he having arranged to be met in Luxembourg. * As I was leaving Arlon, a peasant took me up in his cart for the sum of four sous, and put me down five leagues farther on a heap of stones. I hopped a few paces with the aid of my crutch, and washed the bandage round my scratch, which had developed into a sore, in a spring rustling by the roadside, which did me a great deal of good. The smallpox had come quite out, and I felt relieved. I had not abandoned my knapsack, the straps of which cut my shoulders.