There was a show of resistance.  The fragments of the army of Belgium gathered round Paris; the National Guard, or militia of the city, was marched out; and the youth of the colleges were furnished with field-pieces and artillery officers, who drilled them into very effective cannoneers, and they took naturally to the business, pronouncing it decidedly better fun than hard study.  They were of an age which is full of animal courage, and their only fear was a peremptory order from parents or guardians to leave college and return home.  Some of my school-fellows, anticipating such an injunction, joined the camp outside the city, and saw service enough to talk about for the remainder of their lives.

One morning, I was at the Lyceum, where all were prepared for an immediate order to march, and each one was making his last arrangements.  No person could have supposed that these young men expected to be engaged, within a few hours, in mortal combat.  They were in the highest spirits, and looked forward to the hoped-for battle as though it were to be the most amusing thing imaginable.  While I was there, a false report came in that Napoleon had resumed the command of the army.  The excitement instantly rose to fever-heat, and the demonstration told what hold he still had on these his steadfast friends.  From our position the rear of the army was but a short distance, while the advanced portions of it were engaged.  Versailles had been entered by the Allies, who were attacked and driven out by the French under Vandamme.  The cannonade was at one time as continuous as the roll of a drum.  Prisoners were guarded through the streets, and wagons, conveying wounded men, were continually passing.

Stragglers from the routed army of Waterloo were to be met in all directions, many of them disabled by their pursuers, or the fatigues of a harried retreat.  Pride was forgotten in extreme misery, and they were grateful for any attention or assistance.  One of them was taken into our institution as a servant.  He had been in the army eighteen years, fifteen of which he had served as drummer.  He had been in some of the severest battles, had gone through the Russian campaign, and was among the few of his regiment who survived the carnage of Waterloo.  And yet this man, who had been familiar with death more than half his life, and who at times talked as though he were a perfect tornado in the field, was as arrant a poltroon as ever skulked.

After the Allied Troops entered Paris, and were divided among the inhabitants, some Prussian cavalry soldiers were quartered on us.  Collisions occasionally took place between them and the scholars; and in one instance, one of them entered a study-room in an insulting manner, and in consequence thereof made a progress from the top of the stairs to the bottom with a celerity that would have done credit to his regiment in a charge.  His comrades armed themselves to avenge the indignity, and the students, eager for the fray, sallied out