"'Will you not come back, Pierre?' said I, pulling him by the sleeve, as, at last, I reached the leading files, where the little fellow marched, proud as the tambour-major.
"'_I_ go back, and the regiment marching against the enemy!' exclaimed he, indignantly; and a roar of laughter and applause from the soldiers greeted his words.
"'Nor I either!' cried I. And thus I became a soldier, never to regret the day I belted on the knapsack. But here comes the Père Duclos: I hope he may not be displeased at your having kept me company. I know well he loves not such companionship for his pupil--perhaps he has reason."
Alfred did not wait for the priest's arrival, but darted from the spot and hastened to his room, where, bolting the door, he threw himself upon his bed and wept bitterly. Who knows if these tears decided not all his path in life?
That same evening the lieutenant left the château; and in about two months after came a letter, expressing his gratitude for all the kindness of his host, and withal a present of a gun and a chasseur's accoutrement for Alfred.. They were very handsome and costly, and he was never weary of trying them on his shoulder and looking how they became him; when, in examining one of the pockets for the twentieth time, he discovered a folded paper: he opened it, and found it was an appointment for a cadet in the military school of St. Cyr. Alfred de Vitry was written in pencil where the name should be inscribed, but very faintly, and so that it required sharp looking to detect the letters. It was enough, however, for him who read the words: he packed up a little parcel of clothes, and, with a few francs in his pocket, he set out that night for Chalons, where he took the _malle_. The third day, when he was tracked by the Père, he was already enrolled a cadet, and not all the interest in France could have removed him against his consent.
I will not dwell on a career which was in no respect different from that of hundreds of others. Alfred joined the army in the second Italian campaign--was part of Dessaix's division at Marengo--was wounded at Aspern, and finally accompanied the Emperor in his terrible march to Moscow. He saw more service than his promotion seemed to imply, however; for, after Leipsig, Dresden, Bautzen, he was carried on a litter, with some other dying comrades, into a little village of Alsace--a lieutenant of hussars, nothing more.