Much had the poor inmates to endure, and much to complain of, to the disgrace of England be it said—­of England, in general so kind and bountiful.  Rations of carrion meat, and bread from which I have seen the very hounds occasionally turn away, were unworthy entertainment even for the most ruffian enemy, when helpless and captive; and such, alas! was the fare in those casernes.  And then, those visits, or rather ruthless inroads, called in the slang of the place ‘straw-plait hunts,’ when in pursuit of a contraband article, which the prisoners, in order to procure themselves a few of the necessaries and comforts of existence, were in the habit of making, red-coated battalions were marched into the prisons, who, with the bayonet’s point, carried havoc and ruin into every poor convenience which ingenious wretchedness had been endeavouring to raise around it; and then the triumphant exit with the miserable booty, and worst of all, the accursed bonfire, on the barrack parade of the plait contraband, beneath the view of glaring eyeballs from those lofty roofs, amid the hurrahs of the troops frequently drowned in the curses poured down from above like a tempest-shower, or in the terrific war-whoop of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’”

There is a little vignette of Napoleon’s men in captivity.  Here is another which is worth preserving of the bearing of his veterans when wounded on the field of battle.  It is from Mercer’s recollections of the Battle of Waterloo.  Mercer had spent the day firing case into the French cavalry at ranges from fifty to two hundred yards, losing two-thirds of his own battery in the process.  In the evening he had a look at some of his own grim handiwork.

“I had satisfied my curiosity at Hougoumont, and was retracing my steps up the hill when my attention was called to a group of wounded Frenchmen by the calm, dignified, and soldier-like oration addressed by one of them to the rest.  I cannot, like Livy, compose a fine harangue for my hero, and, of course, I could not retain the precise words, but the import of them was to exhort them to bear their sufferings with fortitude; not to repine, like women or children, at what every soldier should have made up his mind to suffer as the fortune of war, but above all, to remember that they were surrounded by Englishmen, before whom they ought to be doubly careful not to disgrace themselves by displaying such an unsoldier-like want of fortitude.

“The speaker was sitting on the ground with his lance stuck upright beside him—­an old veteran with thick bushy, grizzly beard, countenance like a lion—­a lancer of the old guard, and no doubt had fought in many a field.  One hand was flourished in the air as he spoke, the other, severed at the wrist, lay on the earth beside him; one ball (case-shot, probably) had entered his body, another had broken his leg.  His suffering, after a night of exposure so mangled, must have been great; yet he betrayed it not.  His bearing