“And were it otherwise, how unsatisfying is the thirst for that same glory! how endless the path that leads to it! how many regrets accompany it! how many ties broken! how many friendships forfeited! No, no; return to your own land,--to the country of your birth; some honorable career will always present itself to him who seeks but independence and the integrity of his own heart. Beneath the conquering eagles of the Emperor there are men of every shade of political opinion; for the conscription is pitiless. There are Royalists, who love their king and hate the usurper; there are Jacobins, who worship freedom and detest the tyrant; there are stern Republicans--Vendéens, and followers of Moreau: but yet all are Frenchmen. 'La belle France' is the watchword that speaks to every heart, and patriotism is the bond between thousands. _You_ have no share in this; the delusion of national glory can never throw its deception around you. Return, then, to your country; and be assured, that in _her_ cause your least efforts will be more ennobling to yourself than the boldest deeds the hand of a mercenary ever achieved.” The inborn desire to revisit my native land needed but the counsels of the priest to make it all-powerful; and as, day by day, I plodded onward, my whole thoughts turned to the chances of my escape, and the means by which I could accomplish my freedom; for the war still continued between France and England, and the blockade of the French ports was strictly maintained by a powerful fleet. The difficulty of the step only increased my desire to effect it; and a hundred projects did I revolve in my mind, without ever being able to fix on one where success seemed likely. The very resolve, however, had cheered my spirits, and given new courage to my heart; and an object suggested a hope,--and with a hope, life was no longer burdensome. Each morning now I set forward with a mind more at ease, and more open to receive pleasure from the varied objects which met me as I went. Not so my poor companion; the fatigue of the journey, added to great mental suffering, began to prey upon his health, and brought back an ague he had contracted in Egypt, from the effect of which his constitution had never perfectly recovered. At first the malady showed itself only in great depression of spirits, which made him silent for hours of the way. But soon it grew worse; he walked with much difficulty, took but little nourishment, and seemed impressed with a sad foreboding that the disease must be fatal. “I wanted to reach my village; my own quiet churchyard should have been my resting-place,” said he, as he sank wearied and exhausted on a little bank at the roadside. “But this was only a sick man's fancy. Poor Alphonse lies far away in the dreary plain of Auerstadt.”