of carriage.”  He got leave of absence, and spent six months in Paris, where he was presented at Court and saw much of the best society.  This did not prevent him from working hard to perfect himself in French, as well as in horsemanship, fencing, dancing, and other accomplishments, and from earnestly seeking an opportunity to study the various armies of Europe.  In this he was thwarted by the stupidity and prejudice of the commander-in-chief; and he made what amends he could by extensive reading in all that bore on military matters.

His martial instincts were balanced by strong domestic inclinations.  He was fond of children; and after his disappointment in love used to say that they were the only true inducement to marriage.  He was a most dutiful son, and wrote continually to both his parents.  Sometimes he would philosophize on the good and ill of life; sometimes he held questionings with his conscience; and once he wrote to his mother in a strain of self-accusation not to be expected from a bold and determined soldier.  His nature was a compound of tenderness and fire, which last sometimes showed itself in sharp and unpleasant flashes.  His excitable temper was capable almost of fierceness, and he could now and then be needlessly stern; but towards his father, mother, and friends he was a model of steady affection.  He made friends readily, and kept them, and was usually a pleasant companion though subject to sallies of imperious irritability which occasionally broke through his strong sense of good breeding.  For this his susceptible constitution was largely answerable, for he was a living barometer, and his spirits rose and fell with every change of weather.  In spite of his impatient outbursts, the officers whom he had commanded remained attached to him for life; and, in spite of his rigorous discipline, he was beloved by his soldiers, to whose comfort he was always attentive.  Frankness, directness, essential good feeling, and a high integrity atoned for all his faults.

In his own view, as expressed to his mother, he was a person of very moderate abilities, aided by more than usual diligence; but this modest judgment of himself by no means deprived him of self-confidence, nor, in time of need, of self-assertion.  He delighted in every kind of hardihood; and, in his contempt for effeminacy, once said to his mother:  “Better be a savage of some use than a gentle, amorous puppy, obnoxious to all the world.”  He was far from despising fame; but the controlling principles of his life were duty to his country and his profession, loyalty to the King, and fidelity to his own ideal of the perfect soldier.  To the parent who was the confidant of his most intimate thoughts he said:  “All that I wish for myself is that I may at all times be ready and firm to meet that fate we cannot shun, and to die gracefully and properly when the hour comes.”  Never was wish more signally fulfilled.  Again he tells her:  “My utmost desire and ambition is to look steadily upon