to meet them with pistols and fencing-foils, the latter with buttons snapped off and points sharpened.  There was hopeful promise of a very respectable skirmish; but it was nipped in the bud by the interposition of our peace-making instructors, aided by the authority of a Prussian officer.  When the affair was over, some wonder was expressed why our fire-eating military attendant had not given us his professional services; and, on search being made, we found him snugly stowed away in a hole under the stairs, where he had crept on the first announcement of hostilities.  He afterwards confessed to me that he was a coward, and that no one could imagine what he had suffered in his agonies of fear during his various campaigns.  Yet he came very near being rewarded for extraordinary valor and coolness.  His regiment was advancing on the enemy, and as he was mechanically beating the monotonous pas de charge, not knowing whether he was on his head or his heels, a shot cut the band by which his drum was suspended, and as it fell, he caught it, and without stopping, held it in one hand while he continued to beat the charge with the other.  An officer of rank saw the action, and riding up, said, “Your name, brave fellow?  You shall have the cross of honor for that gallant deed.”  He told me he really did not know what he was doing; he was too frightened to think about anything.  But he added, that it was a pity the general was killed in that very battle, as it robbed him of the promised decoration.

I mention this incident as an evidence of what diversified materials an army is composed, and that the instruments of military despotism are not necessarily endowed with personal courage, the discipline of the mass compensating for individual imperfection.  It also gives evidence that luck has much to do in the fortunes of this world, and that many a man who “bears his blushing honors thick upon him” would as poorly stand a scrutiny as to the means by which they were acquired, as our friend, the drummer, had he been enabled to strut about, in piping times of peace, with a strip of red ribbon at his button-hole.

While preparations were making for the defence of Paris, and the alarmed citizens feared, what was at one time threatened, that the defenders would be driven in, and the streets become a scene of warfare, involving all conditions in the chances of indiscriminate massacre, the powers that were saw the futility of resistance, and opening negotiations with the enemy, closed the war by capitulation.  Whatever relief this may have been to the people generally, it was a sad blow to the martial ardor of my schoolmates.  Their opinion of the transaction was expressed in language by no means complimentary to their temporary rulers.  To lose such an opportunity for a fight was a height of absurdity for which treason and cowardice were inadequate terms.  Their military visions melted away, the field-pieces were wheeled off, the army officers bade them farewell, they were required to deliver up their arms, and they found themselves back again to their old bondage, reduced to the inglorious necessity of attending prayers and learning lessons.