“And so,” said the colonel, after hearing from me a short account of the events which had induced me to turn my eyes to France,--“and so you'd be a soldier? _Eh bien!_ see nothing better going myself. There 's Davernac will tell you the same, though he has lost his arm in the service.” “Oui, pardieu,” said the officer on my right; “I am not the man to dissuade him from a career I 've ever loved.” “À vous, mon ami,” said the young officer who first addressed me on my arrival, as he held out his glass and clinked it against mine. “I hope we shall have you one of these days as our guide through the dark streets of London. The time may not be so distant as you think; never shake your head at it.” “It is not that I would mean,” said I, eagerly. “What then?” said the colonel. “You don't suppose such an expedition as ours could fail of success?” “Nor that either,” replied I; “I am not so presumptuous as to form an opinion on the subject.” “Diantre, then! what is it?” “Simply this: that whatever fortune awaits me, I shall never be found fighting against the country under whose rule I was born. England may not be--alas! she has not been--just to us. But whatever resistance I might have offered in the ranks of my countrymen, I shall never descend to in an invading army. No, no; if France have no other war than with England,--if she have not the cause of Continental liberty at heart,--she 'll have no blood of mine shed in her Service.” “Sacristi!” said the colonel, sipping his wine coolly, “you had better keep these same opinions of yours to your self. There 's a certain little General we have at Paris who rarely permits people to reason about the cause of the campaign. However, it is growing late now, and we 'll not discuss the matter at present. Auguste, will you take Burke to your quarters? And to-morrow I 'll call on the general about his brevet for the Polytechnique.” I felt now that I had spoken more warmly than was pleasing to the party; but the sentiments I had announced were only such as in my heart I had resolved to abide by, and I was pleased that an opportunity so soon offered to display them. I was glad to find myself at rest at last; and although events pressed on me fast and thick enough to have occupied my mind, no sooner had I laid my head on my pillow than I fell into a sound sleep. CHAPTER XXI. THE ÉCOLE MILITAIRE Let me now skip over at a bound some twelve months of my life,--not that they were to me without their chances and their changes, but they were such as are incidental to all boyhood,--and present myself to my reader as the scholar at the Polytechnique. What a change had the time, short as it was, worked in all my opinions! how completely had I unlearned all the teaching of my early instructor, poor Darby! how had I been taught to think that glory was the real element of war, and that its cause was of far less moment than its conduct!