PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.
That period of history between the 20th of March and the 28th of June, 1815, being the interregnum in the reign of Louis the Eighteenth, caused by the arrival of Napoleon from Elba and his assumption of the government of France, is known as "The Hundred Days."
It is as interesting as it was eventful, and has been duly chronicled
wherever facts have been gathered to gratify a curiosity that is not yet
weary of dwelling on the point of time which saw the Star of Destiny
once more in the ascendant before it sank forever.
Whatever is connected with this remarkable epoch is worthy of
remembrance, and whoever can add the interest of a personal experience, though it be limited and unimportant, should be satisfied, in the recital, to adopt that familiar form which may give to his recollections the strongest impress of reality.
I was at that time a schoolboy in Paris. The institution to which I was
attached was connected with one of the National Lyceums, which were
colleges where students resided in large numbers, and where classes from
private schools also regularly attended, each studying in its respective
place and going to the Lyceum at hours of lecture or recitation. All
these establishments were, under Napoleon, to a certain degree military. The roll of the drum roused the scholar to his daily work; a uniform with the imperial button was the only dress allowed to be worn; and the physical as well as the intellectual training was such, that very little additional preparation was required to qualify the inmate of the Lyceum for the duties and privations of the soldier's life. The transition was not unnatural; and the boy who breakfasted in the open air, in midwinter, on a piece of dry bread and as much water as he chose to pump for himself,--who was turned adrift, without cap or overcoat, from the study-room into the storm or sunshine of an open enclosure, to amuse himself in his recess as he best might,--whose continual talk with his comrades was of the bivouac or the battle-field,--and who considered the great object of life to be the development of faculties best fitted to excel in the art of destruction, would not be astonished to find himself sleeping on the bare ground with a levy of raw conscripts.
I was in daily intercourse with several hundred young men, and it
may not be uninteresting to dwell a moment on the character of my
companions, especially as they may be considered a fair type of the
youth of France generally at that time. It is, moreover, a topic with
which few are familiar. There were not many Americans in that country at
that period. I knew of only one at school in Paris beside myself.
If the brilliant glories of the Empire dazzled the mature mind of
age, they wrought into delirium the impulsive brain of youth, whose
impressions do not wait for any aid from the judgment, but burn into the
soul, never to be totally effaced. The early boyhood of those with whom
I was associated had been one of continual excitement. Hardly had the
hasty but eloquent bulletin told the Parisians that the name of another
bloody field was to be inscribed among the victories of France, and the
cannon of the Invalides thundered out their notes of triumph, when again
the mutilated veterans were on duty at their scarcely cooled pieces and
the newswomen in the streets were shrilly proclaiming some new triumph
of the imperial arms. Then came the details, thrilling a warlike people, and the trophies which symbolized success,--banners torn and stained in desperate conflict, destined to hang over Christian altars until the turning current of fortune should drift them back,--parks of artillery rumbling through the streets, to be melted into statue or triumphal column,--and, amid the spoils of war, everything most glorious in Art to fill that wondrous gallery, the like of which the eye of man will never look upon again. At last, in some short respite of those fighting days, came back the conquerors themselves, to enjoy a fleeting period of rest and fame ere they should stiffen on Russian snows, or swell the streams which bathe the walls of Leipsic, or blacken, with countless dead, the plains stretching between the Rhine and their own proud capital.