shores of the Danube, opposite Lobau, I noticed on the bank, which is covered with turf, certain undulations that reminded me of the furrows in a field of lucern.  I asked the reason of it, thinking I should hear of some new method of agriculture:  “There sleep the cavalry of the imperial guard,” said the peasant who served us as a guide; “those are their graves you see there.”  The words made me shudder.  Prince Frederic Schwartzenburg, who translated them, added that the man had himself driven one of the wagons laden with cuirasses.  By one of the strange chances of war our guide had served a breakfast to Napoleon on the morning of the battle of Wagram.  Though poor, he had kept the double napoleon which the Emperor gave him for his milk and his eggs.  The curate of Gross-Aspern took us to the famous cemetery where French and Austrians struggled together knee-deep in blood, with a courage and obstinacy glorious to each.  There, while explaining that a marble tablet (to which our attention had been attracted, and on which were inscribed the names of the owner of Gross-Aspern, who had been killed on the third day) was the sole compensation ever given to the family, he said, in a tone of deep sadness:  “It was a time of great misery, and of great hopes; but now are the days of forgetfulness.”  The saying seemed to me sublime in its simplicity; but when I came to reflect upon the matter, I felt there was some justification for the apparent ingratitude of the House of Austria.  Neither nations nor kings are wealthy enough to reward all the devotions to which these tragic struggles give rise.  Let those who serve a cause with a secret expectation of recompense, set a price upon their blood and become mercenaries.  Those who wield either sword or pen for their country’s good ought to think of nothing but of doing their best, as our fathers used to say, and expect nothing, not even glory, except as a happy accident.

It was in rushing to retake this famous cemetery for the third time that Massena, wounded and carried in the box of a cabriolet, made this splendid harangue to his soldiers:  “What! you rascally curs, who have only five sous a day while I have forty thousand, do you let me go ahead of you?” All the world knows the order which the Emperor sent to his lieutenant by M. de Sainte-Croix, who swam the Danube three times:  “Die or retake the village; it is a question of saving the army; the bridges are destroyed.”

The Author.

Now, I must tell you that the Comtesse de Montcornet is a fragile, timid, delicate little woman.  What do you think of such a marriage as that?  To those who know society such things are common enough; a well-assorted marriage is the exception.  Nevertheless, I have come to see how it is that this slender little creature handles her bobbins in a way to lead this heavy, solid, stolid general precisely as he himself used to lead his cuirassiers.