A young fellow of Max’s character was sure to distinguish himself, and in the course of three campaigns he did distinguish himself so highly that he rose to be a captain, his lack of education helping him strenuously.  In Portugal, in 1809, he was left for dead in an English battery, into which his company had penetrated without being able to hold it.  Max, taken prisoner by the English, was sent to the Spanish hulks at the island of Cabrera, the most horrible of all stations for prisoners of war.  His friends begged that he might receive the cross of the Legion of honor and the rank of major; but the Emperor was then in Austria, and he reserved his favors for those who did brilliant deeds under his own eye:  he did not like officers or men who allowed themselves to be taken prisoner, and he was, moreover, much dissatisfied with events in Portugal.  Max was held at Cabrera from 1810 to 1814.[1] During those years he became utterly demoralized, for the hulks were like galleys, minus crime and infamy.  At the outset, to maintain his personal free will, and protect himself against the corruption which made that horrible prison unworthy of a civilized people, the handsome young captain killed in a duel (for duels were fought on those hulks in a space scarcely six feet square) seven bullies among his fellow-prisoners, thus ridding the island of their tyranny to the great joy of the other victims.  After this, Max reigned supreme in his hulk, thanks to the wonderful ease and address with which he handled weapons, to his bodily strength, and also to his extreme cleverness.

[1] The cruelty of the Spaniards to the French prisoners at Cabrera was very great.  In the spring of 1811, H.M. brig “Minorca,” Captain Wormeley, was sent by Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, then commanding the Mediterranean fleet, to make a report of their condition.  As she neared the island, the wretched prisoners swam out to meet her.  They were reduced to skin and bone; many of them were naked; and their miserable condition so moved the seamen of the “Minorca” that they came aft to the quarter-deck, and asked permission to subscribe three days’ rations for the relief of the sufferers.  Captain Wormeley carried away some of the prisoners, and his report to Sir Charles Cotton, being sent to the Admiralty, was made the basis of a remonstrance on the part of the British government with Spain on the subject of its cruelties.  Sir Charles Cotton despatched Captain Wormeley a second time to Cabrera with a good many head of live cattle and a large supply of other provisions.—­Tr.

But he, in turn, committed arbitrary acts; there were those who curried favor with him, and worked his will, and became his minions.  In that school of misery, where bitter minds dreamed only of vengeance, where the sophistries hatched in such brains were laying up, inevitably, a store of evil thoughts, Max became utterly demoralized.  He listened to the opinions of those who longed for fortune at any price, and