I was in daily intercourse with several hundred young men, and it may not be uninteresting to dwell a moment on the character of my companions, especially as they may be considered a fair type of the youth of France generally at that time.  It is, moreover, a topic with which few are familiar.  There were not many Americans in that country at that period.  I knew of only one at school in Paris beside myself.

If the brilliant glories of the Empire dazzled the mature mind of age, they wrought into delirium the impulsive brain of youth, whose impressions do not wait for any aid from the judgment, but burn into the soul, never to be totally effaced.  The early boyhood of those with whom I was associated had been one of continual excitement.  Hardly had the hasty but eloquent bulletin told the Parisians that the name of another bloody field was to be inscribed among the victories of France, and the cannon of the Invalides thundered out their notes of triumph, when again the mutilated veterans were on duty at their scarcely cooled pieces and the newswomen in the streets were shrilly proclaiming some new triumph of the imperial arms.  Then came the details, thrilling a warlike people, and the trophies which symbolized success,—­banners torn and stained in desperate conflict, destined to hang over Christian altars until the turning current of fortune should drift them back,—­parks of artillery rumbling through the streets, to be melted into statue or triumphal column,—­and, amid the spoils of war, everything most glorious in Art to fill that wondrous gallery, the like of which the eye of man will never look upon again.  At last, in some short respite of those fighting days, came back the conquerors themselves, to enjoy a fleeting period of rest and fame ere they should stiffen on Russian snows, or swell the streams which bathe the walls of Leipsic, or blacken, with countless dead, the plains stretching between the Rhine and their own proud capital.

By no portion of the people were these things gathered with such avidity and regarded with such all-absorbing interest as by the schoolboys of Paris.  Every step of the “Grand Army” was watched with deep solicitude and commented upon with no doubtful criticism.  They made themselves acquainted with the relative merit of each division, and could tell which arm of the service most contributed to the result of any particular battle.  They collected information from all sources,—­from accounts in newspapers, from army letters, from casual conversation with some maimed straggler fresh from the scene of war.  Each boy, as he made his periodical visit to his family, brought back something to the general fund of anecdote.  The fire that burned in their young bosoms was fed by tales of daring, and there was a halo round deeds of blood which effectually concealed the woe and misery they caused.  There was but one side of the medal visible, and the figures on that were so bold and beautiful that no one cared for or thought of the ugly