“Ay, was it. Many can tell you of it, as well as myself. They were both in the same regiment--the fifteenth demi-brigade of light infantry. They held a château at Salo against the enemy for eight hours, when at length the elder, who commanded at the front, capitulated and laid down his arms; the younger refused to comply, and continued to fight. They were reinforced an hour afterwards, and the Austrians beaten off. The day after they were both tried, and the result was as I have told you; the utmost favor the younger could obtain was, not to witness the execution of his brother.” As I heard this story, my very blood curdled in my veins, and I looked with a kind of dread on him who now rode a few paces in front of me,--the stern and pitiless Napoleon. At last we entered the court of the Tuileries, when the Emperor, dismissing his staff, entered the Palace, and we separated, to follow our own plans for the evening. For a moment or two I remained uncertain which way to turn. I wished much to see Duchesne, yet scarcely hoped to meet with him by returning to the Luxembourg. It was not the time to be away from him, at a moment like this, and I resolved to seek him out. For above an hour I went from café to café, where he was in the habit of resorting, but to no purpose. He had not been seen in any of them during the day; so that at length I turned homeward with the faint hope that I should see him there on my arrival. Somehow I never had felt more sad and depressed; and the events of the day, so far from making me participate in the general joy, had left me gloomy and desponding. My spirit was little in harmony with the gay and merry groups that passed along the streets, chanting their campaigning songs, and usually having some old soldier of the “Guard” amongst them; for they felt it as a fête, and were hurrying to the cabarets to celebrate the day of Austerlitz. CHAPTER XIII. THE CHEVALIER. When men of high courage and proud hearts meet with reverses in life, our anxiety is rather to learn what new channel their thoughts and exertions will take in future, than to hear how they have borne up under misfortune. I knew Duchesne too well to suppose that any turn of fate would find him wholly unprepared; but still, a public reprimand, and from the lips of the Emperor, too, was of a nature to wound him to the quick, and I could not guess, nor picture to myself in what way he would bear it. The loss of grade itself was a thing of consequence, as the service of the _élite_ was reckoned a certain promotion; not to speak of--what to him was far more important--the banishment from Paris and its _salons_ to some gloomy and distant encampment. In speculations like these I returned to my quarters, where I was surprised to discover that the chevalier had not been since morning. I learned from his servant that he had dismissed him, with his horses, soon after leaving the Tuileries, and had not returned home from that time.