‘How comes it thou hast this old uniform, boy?’ said he, pointing to my sleeve.
‘It was one they gave me in the Temple,’ said I. ‘I was a _rat du prison_ for some time.’
‘Thunder of war!’ exclaimed the cannonier, ‘I had rather stand a whole platoon-fire than see what thou must have seen, child.’
‘And hast heart to go back there, boy,’ said the corporal, ‘and live the same life again?’
‘No, I ‘ll never go back,’ said I. ‘I ‘ll be a soldier.’
‘Well said, _mon brave_--thou’lt be a hussar, I know.’
‘If nature has given thee a good head, and a quick eye, my boy, thou might even do better, and in time, perhaps, wear a coat like mine,’ said the cannonier.
‘_Sacrebleu!_ cried a little fellow, whose age might have been anything from boyhood to manhood--for while small of stature, he was shrivelled and wrinkled like a mummy--‘why not be satisfied with the coat he wears?’
‘And be a drummer, like thee?’ said the cannonier.
‘Just so, like me, and like Masséna--he was a drummer, too.’
‘No, no!’ cried a dozen voices together; ‘that’s not true.’
‘He’s right; Masséna was a drummer in the Eighth,’ said the cannonier; ‘I remember him when he was like that boy yonder.’
‘To be sure,’ said the little fellow, who, I now perceived, wore the dress of a _tambour_; and is it a disgrace to be the first to face the enemy?’
‘And the first to turn his back to him, comrade,’ cried another.
‘Not always---not always,’ said the little fellow, regardless of the laugh against him. ‘Had it been so, I had not gained the battle of Grandrengs on the Sambre.’
‘Thou gain a battle!’ shouted half a dozen, in derisive laughter.
‘What, Petit Pierre gained the day at Grandrengs!’ said the cannonier; ‘why, I was there myself, and never heard of that till now.’
‘I can believe it well,’ replied Pierre; ‘many a man’s merits go unacknowledged--and Kléber got all the credit that belonged to Pierre Canot.’
‘Let us hear about it, Pierre, for even thy victory is unknown by name to us poor devils of the army of Italy. How call’st thou the place?’
‘Grandrengs,’ said Pierre proudly. ‘It’s name will live as long, perhaps, as many of those high-sounding ones you have favoured us with. Mayhap, thou hast heard of Cambray?’
‘Never!’ said the hussar, shaking his head.