Desertions began that very day, and I said to Buche, “Let us return to Phalsbourg and Harberg, and take up our work, and live like honest men.”  About fifty of us from Alsace-Lorraine were in the battalion, and we set off together on the road to Strasbourg.

On July 8 we heard that Louis XVIII. was to come back, and already the white banner of the Bourbons was being displayed in the villages.

In some places there were rascals who called us Buonapartists, and gendarmes who took us to the town hall and made us shout “Vive le Roi!” Buche and some of the old soldiers hated this; but what did it matter who was king, and what these fools wanted us to shout?

Our little company got smaller and smaller as men halted in their own villages, and when, on July 16, we reached Phalsbourg, Buche and I were alone.

Buche went on to break the news of my return, but I could not wait, and ran after him.

I heard people saying, “There’s Joseph, Bertha,” and in a moment I was in the house, and in Catherine’s arms.  Then I embraced M. Goulden, and an hour later Aunt Gredel arrived.

Jean Buche would not stay and dine with us, but hurried home to Harberg.  I have often seen him since; and Zebede, too, who remained in the army.

Many insulting things were said about us by the Pinacles, but I had happiness in my family circle, especially when Catherine presented me with a little Joseph.

I am an old man now, but M. Goulden always said the principles of freedom and liberty would triumph, and I have lived long enough to see his words come true.

* * * * *

OCTAVE FEUILLET

Romance of a Poor Young Man

Octave Feuillet, born at Saint Lo, in France, on August 11, 1821, was the son of a Norman gentleman who regarded literature as an ignoble profession.  When Octave ran away to Paris in order to pursue a literary career, his father refused to help him, and for some years the young writer had a very hard struggle.  But on taking to novel-writing, Feuillet quickly acquired fame and fortune.  His “Romance of a Poor Young Man” ("Le Roman d’un Jeune Homme Pauvre"), which appeared in 1858, made him the most popular author of the day.  Standing midway between the novelists of the romantic school and the writers of the realistic movement, he combined a sense of the poetry of life with a gift for analysing the finer shades of feeling.  The plot of the “Romance of a Poor Young Man” is certainly extraordinary; but in the present case some allowance must be made for the fact that the hero is induced to accept the humble position in which he finds himself by his old family lawyer, who secretly designs to marry him to the daughter of his new employers.  A scheme of this sort would not Strike a French reader as improbable, for marriage in France is often more a business arrangement than a love affair.  Feuillet spent the latter part of his life in retirement, and died on December 29, 1890.

I.—­A Nobleman in Difficulties