“I pity you, for a man like you would have great success in love.”

“I do not care a fig for love; it requires cares which would bother me much more than the slight inconvenience to which we were alluding, and to which I am used now.”

“I am not of your opinion, for the amorous pleasure is insipid when love does not throw a little spice in it.  Do you think, for instance, that the ugly wretch I met at the guard-room is worth what I now suffer on her account?”

“Of course not, and that is why I am sorry for you.  If I had known, I could have introduced you to something better.”

“The very best in that line is not worth my health, and health ought to be sacrificed only for love.”

“Oh! you want women worthy of love?  There are a few here; stop with us for some time, and when you are cured there is nothing to prevent you from making conquests.”

O’Neilan was only twenty-three years old; his father, who was dead, had been a general, and the beautiful Countess Borsati was his sister.  He presented me to the Countess Zanardi Nerli, still more lovely than his sister, but I was prudent enough not to burn my incense before either of them, for it seemed to me that everybody could guess the state of my health.

I have never met a young man more addicted to debauchery than O’Neilan.  I have often spent the night rambling about with him, and I was amazed at his cynical boldness and impudence.  Yet he was noble, generous, brave, and honourable.  If in those days young officers were often guilty of so much immorality, of so many vile actions, it was not so much their fault as the fault of the privileges which they enjoyed through custom, indulgence, or party spirit.  Here is an example: 

One day O’Neilan, having drunk rather freely, rides through the city at full speed.  A poor old woman who was crossing the street has no time to avoid him, she falls, and her head is cut open by the horse’s feet.  O’Neilan places himself under arrest, but the next day he is set at liberty.  He had, only to plead that it was an accident.

The officer Laurent not having called upon me to redeem his promisory note of six sequins during the week, I told him in the street that I would no longer consider myself bound to keep the affair secret.  Instead of excusing himself, he said,

“I do not care!”

The answer was insulting, and I intended to compel him to give me reparation, but the next day O’Neilan told me that Captain Laurent had gone mad and had been locked up in a mad-house.  He subsequently recovered his reason, but his conduct was so infamous that he was cashiered.

O’Neilan, who was as brave as Bayard, was killed a few years afterwards at the battle of Prague.  A man of his complexion was certain to fall the victim of Mars or of Venus.  He might be alive now if he had been endowed only with the courage of the fox, but he had the courage of the lion.  It is a virtue in a soldier, but almost a fault in an officer.  Those who brave danger with a full knowledge of it are worthy of praise, but those who do not realize it escape only by a miracle, and without any merit attaching itself to them.  Yet we must respect those great warriors, for their unconquerable courage is the offspring of a strong soul, of a virtue which places them above ordinary mortals.