BV 2623 .Z9 S3 1902 
 Sadtler, William Augustus, 
 
 1864- 
 Under two captains 
 

o/ ^JL oCje-^^''*^ ^ 
 
 ac^t^ a-u^^yj^ 
 
Under Two Captains 
 
 A Romance of History 
 
 Born ,..", /'•/; . 
 
 Rev. W. a. SADTIvER, Ph.D. 
 
 P.tC 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE 
 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
 THE UNITED LUTHERAN PUBLICATION HOUSE 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY 
 
 W. A. SADTLER. 
 
TO ONE WHO 
 
 ONCE WELCOMED THE HERO OF THIS TALE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 REFINED HOSPITALITY 
 
 OF A TRULY CHRISTIAN HOME, 
 
 AND WHO NOW RESTS, IN THE EVENING OF LIFE, 
 
 FROM HER ABUNDANT LABORS — 
 
 TO MY MOTHER, 
 
 CAROLINE SCHMUCKER SADTLER, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS 
 AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 'TRUTH is stranger than Fiction, and more interesting. 
 
 This fact explains why the author of this work prefers 
 to have it known as a romance of History, rather than as a 
 historical romance. History it is that we have before us 
 for the reader should know that the strange and improbable 
 events among those here recorded are well-authenticated 
 facts, and it is only the background and the connecting 
 links, as they may be called, in this remarkable life-story 
 that come from the author's hand. 
 
 To begin the enumeration, it may be said that the cir- 
 cumstances of the birth, education and varied acquirements 
 of our hero are given in their simplicity. There is the 
 same brief setting forth in its leading particulars of his 
 service under Napoleon, with its campaigns, battles and 
 hardships. The most striking incidents, as those of the 
 escape from the Russian horsemen at Austerlitz, of the 
 destruction of the Inquisition at Madrid and of the escape 
 from prison, are simple facts. The same statement holds 
 true of the leading incidents of the hero's life in this land ; 
 e. g., his reception by the Quaker, his employment, his 
 battle with the rustic cavalry in Eastern Pennsylvania, his 
 recognition by Lafayette and many other incidents. Col- 
 onel Lehmanowsky enjoyed the friendship of the public 
 men named, and attained great popularity as a lecturer. 
 His labors and sacrifices on behalf of his loved Church 
 have been told only in part. 
 
 The author's sources of information are many and 
 varied. No little time has been given to carefully selected 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 historical reading, and there has been an extensive corres- 
 pondence with those who have made detailed and local 
 investigation of the facts of this strange career. Foremost 
 among these investigators stand the Rev. M. L. Wagner, 
 of Vandalia, 111, to whose suggestion this work may be said 
 to be due, and Mr. A. H. Raising, of Corydon, Ind., a grand- 
 son of the hero of our story. To these gentlemen my 
 thanks for their valuable aid is hereby tendered. 
 
 The reader will be interested to know that the story of 
 this life was written years ago as an autobiography The 
 manuscript was entrusted to a certain firm, to be published 
 by them in parts ; but was stolen while in their hands, or 
 destroyed to please those who feared its appearance in 
 print. In any event there has been no trace of it found for 
 more than forty years. However, the Truth cannot be 
 destroyed or even long suppressed. 
 
 There are certain lessons in the life of this patriarch of 
 modern times that should at least be named. Like the 
 great Abraham, this Great-Heart of our age walked by 
 faith, and many a time in the long journey showed himself 
 a man of might, even to the casting down of strongholds. 
 Here is an example in true patriotism that our vainglorious 
 age greatly needs. Here is a lesson for young and old — a 
 noble figure stepping out of the well-nigh forgotten Past to 
 point us to the source of all true strength. "They that 
 wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength ; they shall 
 mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run, and not be 
 weary ; they shall walk, and not faint." 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Introduction 9 
 
 CHAPTER. 
 
 I. A Stormy Spring Time 11 
 
 II. Lux EX Oriente 18 
 
 III. Freedom From the West 30 
 
 IV. Mars in the Ascendency 45 
 
 V. A Mighty Personality 69 
 
 VI. The Philosophy of War .... 84 
 
 VII. The Waning Planet 99 
 
 VIII. The Caged Lion 115 
 
 IX. Under the Shadow 129 
 
 PAET IT. 
 
 IN THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 I. Beginning Life Anew 143 
 
 II. In a New Role 154 
 
 III. From the Farm to the Capital 166 
 
 IV. Westward Ho ! 181 
 
 V. Nation-Building 193 
 
 VL A Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ 205 
 
 Valedictory 216 
 
 7 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 A S I sit before the wood fires that are the centres 
 of comfort in this Western world, it comes to 
 me again and again that the life of one of these is 
 an emblem of my life and indeed of all life. 
 
 When first thrown upon the fire, how the log 
 smokes and sputters as the heat penetrates its sub- 
 stance ! So it is with the life of man in Youth : 
 there is much smoke and there are gases burning 
 with strangely colored flame that must be consumed 
 before the real work of life can be begun. 
 Then comes the steady glow and heat of man- 
 hood, realizing itself and the purpose of its 
 being. Lastly Age comes ; but let no one speak 
 contemptuously or even lightly of it, as I can 
 testify out of the abundant vigor of my four-score 
 years, there is often fire under the white ashes 
 that can warm or burn. 
 
 You have read, my children, what the Psalmist, 
 the Preacher and the Apostle say of the life of 
 man. Poet, Philosopher and Scientist have added 
 their word ; and the sum of it all is, Man is as 
 the grass. 
 
 Why then the story of one more life, burning 
 
10 iNTRODUCTIOrf. 
 
 fiercely enough for the moment, but then dying 
 away in the ashes of forgetfulness ? 
 
 Long years, crowded with stirring experience, 
 have been mine : yet it is not from any motive of 
 vanity that I speak, for I have seen too much af 
 lyife and of its great events and personalities to 
 hold up my own insignificant self to the public 
 view. Nor is it because, like the moth charmed 
 by the flame, I am attracted by the pomp or glitter 
 of the world as I have seen it. Sic transit gloria 
 mundi is the sentence that I have seen fulfilled in 
 the case of the grandest court and mightiest 
 personality of the modern world. 
 
 Why then do I write my tale of a life ? Not 
 from vanity or from love of this world : but to set 
 forth to a heedless generation a fact that is ever 
 present in my thoughts — the fact of the guiding 
 hand of Almighty God in my life and in the life of 
 the world. In the crystal beauty of the drop of 
 rain clinging to a grass blade or in one life 
 among the untold billions that have appeared on 
 earth and are now gone, as well as in the conduct 
 of the vast universe, God is present. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 A STORMY SPRING TIME. 
 
 /^F how many whom the world of their day 
 called great and of how many known only 
 to their little circle of friends has it been recorded 
 that they were born and that they lived and that 
 they died ! Some were kings, greatly regarded 
 and feared in their time, and others were poor 
 men of whom the world took little note : but, 
 great or small, one record holds for them 
 all. Why then burden patient paper with the 
 record of one more life from the vast hive of 
 humanity ? 
 
 Trusting that some good to man, and especially 
 some honor to the Great Name may result from 
 the story of a life that has been as a storm- 
 driven wave of the sea, I take up my tale, 
 fully realizing that Truth is stranger than Fic- 
 tion. 
 
 I was born in the city of Warsaw, Poland, in 
 
 the year of our blessed Lord 1773. In circles in 
 
 which it has been my lot to spend years not a 
 
 few much is made of a family name that has 
 
 held a place of prominence for a few centuries 
 
 11 
 
12 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 or even generations. In this New World too, 
 where Democracy is on the throne, men lay 
 great stress, I find, upon any circumstances worthy 
 of mention in the record of their families. Did 
 boasting profit, I might tell of a lineage that can 
 be followed back without a break for more than 
 three thousand years to an ancestor whose name 
 has its honorable mention, not in any book of 
 the peerage, but in the unchanged and imperish- 
 able Book of God. 
 
 In other words, I was born a Jew, of tribe and 
 family whose names are household words even 
 in untold Christian homes: but this knowledge 
 shall die with me, for to declare it would be 
 nought but vanity. The family name by which 
 we were known to the Gentile world is 
 Lehmanowsky, and to me there was given in 
 infancy, after the ancient custom of Israel, the 
 name John Jacob. I was the first-born of the 
 family, my mother, whose people came to Poland 
 from France, being but a girl in years when I was 
 born. Within the narrow limits of home there 
 was happiness without alloy, and the years of my 
 childhood sped by, so that now I cannot realize 
 that period as anything else than a fondly cher- 
 ished dream. 
 
 Outside of the home very difierent conditions 
 prevailed, as I learned at a fairly early age. The 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTOR V. 13 
 
 hard lot of the Jew in almost every part of Europe 
 eighty years ago is a sombre picture on which I 
 need not dwell, for it is known to those who read 
 and reflect, and all others would fail to appreciate 
 it in its cruel injustice. The Almighty made of 
 one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the 
 face of the earth, and has declared Himself as the 
 Father of all ; yet what evil seeds of distrust and 
 hatred has not Satan sown in men's hearts towards 
 those of alien race or even of different language, 
 and on what trifling provocation do not these rise 
 up in brutish rage against their fellow men ! 
 
 In most places the Jew was condemned to live 
 a life apart, being regarded as one under the curse 
 of God, as it were, a religious leper. However 
 there was less of this most un-Christ-like spirit 
 in Poland than in other lands, and in my time it 
 had almost disappeared under the terrible pressure 
 of danger from without. 
 
 To you into whose hands this narrative may 
 fall Poland's story is, or should be, known in its 
 great, pivotal facts. You have surely heard of 
 the glorious Sobieski and of the deeds of valor 
 to which he led his people in driving back the 
 barbarian Turk from the lands of Christian 
 Europe. You know, too, something at least of 
 the liberty and prosperity the Polish nation en- 
 joyed until the rapacious Russian bear fell upon 
 
14 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 her in overpowering might, while sister nations 
 that should have defended her, as she once de- 
 fended them, stood idly by or shared the plunder 
 with the spoiler. 
 
 In the midst of the evil days that came so fast 
 upon unhappy Poland, Patriotism was a cloak that 
 covered even the heinous sin of alien race. My 
 father bore his part well in those troubled times, 
 giving freely of his wealth and also his counsel 
 when it was sought and his personal aid to the 
 wounded and sick, for he was by profession a 
 chemist or physician. Having inherited wealth 
 in his youth, he had abundant leisure to follow his 
 inclination and gave himself especially to science, 
 gathering from Arabic and other Oriental sources 
 much lore that was unknown to the professors in 
 the European universities. Literature and music 
 also received a fair measure of attention, and 
 already at home I became a linguist and a fair 
 musician. 
 
 But even as a lad it was my lot to be turned 
 aside from the quiet paths of Peace. The clouds 
 of War burst one after another upon our once 
 happy land, and, boy as I still was, I found a place 
 in the ranks for one campaign. This may seem 
 less strange when I say that even then I had 
 attained a stature much like that of Saul the son 
 of Kish. My height when full-grown was six feet 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 15 
 
 and six inclies, and my physique was in good pro- 
 portion. While this lofty stature had its unques- 
 tioned advantages in days of Peace as in those of 
 War, it often put me to such discomfort, because of 
 cramped quarters, that I have sadly reflected on 
 the penalty of greatness. 
 
 My boyish experience in War ended in the de- 
 feat of the cause for which we fought ; but it 
 brought with it its own valuable lessons. Fore- 
 most among these was the habit of steadiness in 
 time of excitement and especially under fire, and 
 then the all-important lesson of obedience to com- 
 mand or discipline. At this time, too, I gained a 
 fair skill in the use of the sword, the hand learning 
 to follow the eye as by one instinct. As time 
 elapsed and strength proportionate to my stature 
 came, such became my mastery with the sabre 
 that among many champions with this weapon 
 whom I met I never found my superior. 
 
 The lessons learned under the iron hand of Mars 
 were not soon forgotten, for they were to pass 
 into the very texture of my after life ; but now for 
 more than two happy years it was my high privi- 
 lege to give myself with every force of mind and 
 heart to study. The very fact that the Future 
 seemed to have nothing but calamity in store for 
 our beloved country, drove a little band of us, con- 
 genial spirits all, to the most earnest study of the 
 
16 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 lessons of the mighty Past, and from that again in 
 quick succession to speculation, hope and aspira- 
 tion for the Future, developing so swiftly before 
 our eyes. 
 
 You know what University life is to the young 
 European to-day. It is the Golden Age, not only 
 of Culture, but also of Freedom, of Brotherhood 
 and of Aspiration. If it is still the ideal life in 
 this materialistic age, it was all this and more in 
 the closing years of the Eighteenth Century when 
 the great conceptions of Liberty, Fraternity and 
 Equality were just blossoming for their fruitage 
 on the thorny stem of the old tree. Time. 
 
 In speaking of this life where shall I begin or 
 end ? Surely I need not pause to tell of the build- 
 ings that sheltered the University of Warsaw, for 
 these were but its shell and doubtless have long 
 since been destroyed by the storm of War. Shall 
 I speak of the professors ? There were able men 
 among them ; but their voices now seem to sound 
 in my ears only as a part of the mighty chorus for 
 Liberty that I have heard for so many years echo- 
 ing throughout Europe and America. Shall I tell 
 of the body of students representing many nation- 
 alities and types ? I had my acquaintance with 
 leading men among them, for it has ever been my 
 pleasure to learn to know those of different lands, 
 to acquire their language and, as well as might 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 17 
 
 be, to enter iuto their life and thought. I might 
 state here, that in the course of my life I have 
 gained a fair mastery of twenty-two languages, 
 ancient and modern. 
 
 Shall I tell of individuals whom I learned to 
 esteem, and in one case to love as David loved 
 Jonathan ? There were some noble spirits in our 
 little band of comrades, and one who was too noble 
 for this world. He fell in Freedom's holy cause 
 three score years ago and some of the choicest 
 spirits of our little student world with him, when 
 Poland fell before her savage foes. 
 
 There is no need that I should describe our 
 student life, now deeply earnest in its thought and 
 aspiration, now gay in the abandon of youthful 
 enthusiasm. We worked as strenuously as men can 
 work, carried away at times by the rush of some 
 great, up-lifting thought, and at times we gave 
 ourselves to pleasure, and passed the hours in 
 light-hearted merriment. Quarrels there were too, 
 chiefly among those of rival nationalities or polit- 
 ical tendencies, and these usually ended in the 
 duel ; but from these I stood wholly aloof. Scars, 
 whose number almost passes belief, I could show 
 upon my person ; but none of these was gotten 
 in foolish brawl. 
 2 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 LUX EX ORIENTE. 
 
 A MONG the studies with which I was occupied 
 during these halcyon years, that which 
 attracted me the most strongly was History. Per- 
 haps because my own people are the puzzle of 
 History, its great lesson has been to me as the 
 unanswered question of the Sphinx. The tragedy 
 of Israel was the theme that absorbed much of my 
 thinking. Not only did the contrast between the 
 former glory of the nation and its present wretch- 
 edness fairly burn itself into my consciousness ; but 
 the perplexing question arose before my mind 
 again and again, and would not down : Why this 
 evident judgment of God upon that people whom 
 He had chosen from among the nations and led 
 and kept so long as His own peculiar people ? 
 Was it, as the Christians say, because the Christ 
 came to His own people, and was by them rejected 
 and crucified ? 
 
 Who and what, according to the prophets, was 
 the Christ to be, and what was or is His king- 
 dom ? 
 
 And what was to be the end of this tragedy of a 
 nation ? For what purpose was Israel being kept, 
 
 18 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 19 
 
 a people without a country, a government or a 
 priesthood? Why had Jehovah chosen this one 
 people to be the light-bearers of the world during 
 the long ages, dwelling among them, or at least 
 making His awful presence felt in almost every 
 turn of their daily lives : yet afterwards just as 
 evidently rejecting and punishing them? What 
 then was to be their destiny ? Would God's old 
 covenant people ever again take its place among 
 the nations of earth ? If not, to what end had it 
 been so providentially kept a distinct people, even 
 centuries after its mighty oppressor Rome had 
 fallen and crumbled away ? 
 
 Most earnest and protracted was the study I gave 
 to the Law and the Prophets, as I thought on these 
 hard questions, and many, too, were the conversa- 
 tions I held with my father. He was a man of 
 strong intellect, well read, too, both in the sacred 
 writings and in secular History. His turn of mind, 
 however, was philosophical rather than religious, 
 the speculations of Reason and the progress of 
 Science affording him his favorite themes for dis- 
 cussion. As for any impartial discussion with our 
 Rabbi of Israel's relation to Jesus, the Messiah of 
 the Christians, the thing was impossible. So 
 strong was his feeling on this question that he 
 would become enraged at any suggestion that 
 Jesus of Nazareth could be the Messiah of Israel, 
 
20 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 and would silence me with the dreaded name, 
 "Apostate." 
 
 Occasionally I would allow myself to be drawn 
 into conversation on this most interesting of sub- 
 jects by a chosen few of my friends who were 
 Christians ; but they would urge that I should give 
 up Judaism as a relic of the dead Past, and this I 
 stubbornly maintained I would not and could not 
 do. Of my two most intimate friends, the one, 
 Heinrich, was of the prevailing Roman Catholic 
 faith ; the other, Carl, of the Protestant minority. 
 
 In company with Heinrich I occasionally 
 attended services in the Roman Catholic cathedral. 
 At first the impression was very strong that was 
 made upon my spirit by its sensuous worship ; but 
 soon there followed a comparison with the infi- 
 nitely richer Temple service, as set forth in the 
 Scriptures ; then, what I was witnessing seemed 
 veiy bare indeed. Then, too, the thing to be 
 found in every synagogue, the very heart of a 
 rightly ordered service, viz : the reading and expo- 
 sition of the Scriptures, was in these Roman ser- 
 vices all but wholly lacking. 
 
 The worship of the Protestant Church I found 
 very plain ; but then nothing elaborate was 
 attempted, and it made much of the one thing I 
 especially prized — the exposition of the Scriptures. 
 This Gospel that was here made the very centre of 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 21 
 
 the services, how different it was from the teaching 
 of the rabbis, how simple, and yet how fraught 
 with irresistible power ! 
 
 My respect was won for the work that I could 
 see the pastor was doing, both faithfully and 
 efficiently, in the face of many hindrances and 
 petty persecutions ; and naturally also I came to 
 respect the man himself His personality did not 
 impress one at first meeting; for he was unas- 
 suming and even retiring in manner, though of a 
 quiet strength that could give good account of 
 itself when need arose. Pastor Klein still lives in 
 my thoughts, a fragrant memory from that long- 
 gone Past. 
 
 Acquaintance with him soon ripened into friend- 
 ship, and many an earnest conversation we had in 
 his study, or of a Sunday afternoon as we walked 
 or lingered in some retired spot, under the pines, 
 perhaps, well away from the crowds of the city. 
 At such times I could not but recognize that I was 
 talking with a man mighty in the Scriptures, in 
 the Law and the Prophets just as truly as in the 
 Gospel. 
 
 In the older Scriptures I too was well versed, 
 and before my imagination, as distinctly as the 
 towers of Warsaw rose before my eyes, glowed the 
 vision of the kingdom of the Greater David, who 
 I believed, was yet to come. For this expected 
 
22 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS. 
 
 kingdom of earth I contended with many a care- 
 fully studied argument, but without convincing 
 even myself. An illustration that I could not 
 escape, for it lay on the very surface, was that our 
 loved kingdom of Poland, now tottering, as we 
 could see, to its fall ; yet destined, we firmly 
 believed, to further the holy cause of Freedom by 
 the wrongs it had so innocently and heroically 
 endured. 
 
 But my honored friend was able to give a reason 
 for the faith that was in him by citing far deeper 
 truths than that involved in the fate of Poland. 
 
 "Your cherished vision of a greater David and 
 of a more splendid Solomon," said the pastor, "is 
 a very attractive one to the natural heart; but 
 it holds up the ideal of earth, and not that of 
 heaven. God's thoughts are not our thoughts, 
 and the Messiah, He saw the world needed was One 
 of whom it could be said : ' He shall not cry, nor 
 lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the 
 street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the 
 smoking flax shall he not quench : and he shall 
 bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not 
 fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment 
 in the earth : and the isles shall wait for His 
 law.' " 
 
 " And was not this prophetic picture realized in 
 Jesus of Nazareth ? Did he not go about in pov- 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 23 
 
 erty and lowliness, doing in quiet and obscurity 
 His wonderful work for the redemption of man 
 from the power of Satan ? Did He not show Him- 
 self merciful beyond the measure of our under- 
 standing with the bruised reeds of humanity, the 
 mammonized publicans and the earth-stained sm- 
 ners> Did He not even make of such pillars for the 
 glorious City of God, and fan the faintly smoking 
 embers of spirituality in the soul of a Peter until 
 they could set three thousand souls on fire with the 
 consuming desire for righteousness ? " 
 
 Here I demanded of the pastor exact proof from 
 the prophetic Scriptures that the Messiah of Israel 
 was to be such a one as he was describing. 
 
 " To go back then," he continued, " to the days of 
 old • Does not God's purpose of love for His people 
 Israel stand out in the old Scriptures as m letters 
 of fire and did not Israel in hardness of heart 
 thrust this love away ? Is it not written in Isaiah, 
 ' But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O 
 Jacob, and He that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: 
 for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy 
 name; thou art mine.' And again, 'This people 
 have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my 
 praise ' Such peculiar and tender love of the God 
 and Father of us all for Israel there certainly was, 
 as might be shown by many a passage ol Holy 
 Writ A purpose there is here that reaches back 
 
24 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 to the dim light of Creation ; yes, even to the un- 
 thinkable ages of Eternity; for God created Israel 
 for His own glory. Ingratitude may come in, and 
 it did come in, to interrupt the flow of God's love 
 for His people and through them for all mankind: 
 but could man's sin, think you, break the eternal 
 purpose of God ? Affliction came upon Israel now 
 and again because of its sin in the fulfillment of 
 God's plan of love; yet Jehovah remembered His 
 people in love even in the days of their merited 
 chastisement. ' But the Lord hath taken you, and 
 brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out 
 of Egypt, to be unto Him a people of inheritance, 
 as ye are this day.' " 
 
 " But mark now the three-fold thwarting of the 
 Great Shepherd's purpose of love by a rebellious 
 people. You know too well the sad story of the 
 ungrateful murmuring in the wilderness and of the 
 forty years of wandering that a just God ordained 
 as recompense. Then, after long generations of 
 enjoyment of the Land of Promise and of unfailing 
 experience of God's faithfulness and mercy, the peo- 
 ple turned aside to serve idols, and were delivered 
 to their enemies to serve for seventy years in the 
 bitterness of the Babylon Captivity. Finally Israel 
 committed the great sin of its whole sin-stained 
 career in rejecting and crucifying God's own all- 
 loving Son, and through the weary centuries since 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 25 
 
 it has been a wanderer on earth, finding no rest for 
 its foot and no peace for its heart." 
 
 *' Over against all this, consider the thing that 
 might have been for Israel in the fulfillment of 
 God's gracious promise that peace should come to it 
 as a river. ' O that thou hadst hearkened to my 
 commandments! then had thy peace been as a river 
 and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.' 
 Instead of the River of Peace that the Lord God 
 intended should come to Israel, watering and mak- 
 ing glad all the fields of its life, there has come 
 desolation that is as the desert sands that have 
 buried Babylon and Ninevah with their sins from 
 men's sight." 
 
 " But there is a very different thing that shall be 
 when the fullness of God's set time has come. 
 Then, when the Gentile branches have had their 
 day for fruit-bearing, the natural brarches shall 
 be restored and Israel shall even yet be saved. 
 ' And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, 
 shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in 
 again. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is 
 written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, 
 and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.' 
 Great was the sin of the men of Israel when with 
 wicked hands they crucified the Lord of Glory: yet 
 the All-wise One fore-knew even this crowning act 
 of wickedness, and ordained good from this also. 
 
26 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 His mercy is now turned to the Gentiles; but, 
 when the fullness of the Gentiles is come, Israel 
 shall again be raised by the hand of Almighty 
 power and love. Ezekiel 36: 24-28." 
 
 " Yet there is a condition that is indispensable to 
 this restoration of Israel ; there is one lever of 
 might that alone can lift an entire people from the 
 place of its wretchedness, gilded though that 
 wretchedness be in the case of many. If we turn 
 again to the words of the prophet, we see that 
 prayer is that lever that can raise one people or the 
 whole world. ' Thus saith the Lord God: I will yet 
 for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to 
 do it for them." 
 
 ' ' But, when we pray to the Father for the 
 redemption of the world from Sin and its deaden- 
 ing power, we pray for the coming of the Christ, 
 and so we come again to the great question of the 
 mission of Jesus. What was that mission ? It was 
 to be to the world lying in Sin the light-bearer 
 that Israel was intended to be, and infinitely more, 
 even the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
 world. Those Jews of modern times and others of 
 like spirit who would accept Jesus as the greatest 
 of prophets, and yet reject Him as the Lamb of 
 God slain for the sin of the world, overlook in 
 their superficial rationalism the claims that He 
 made over and again that He is the Son of God 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 27 
 
 and one with God. Either he is what He declares 
 Himself to be, Very God of Very God, or He is a 
 deceiver or poor crazed fanatic ; there is no middle 
 
 ground." 
 
 "Jesus Christ was born into this world and lived 
 the life that He chose for Himself that He might 
 die the death that was to set men free from the 
 awful might of Sin. ' The Son of Man must be 
 lifted up,' is the thought that was ever present 
 with Him, to cast its hateful shadow over the path- 
 way of His pure life. All the bitter particulars of 
 the treading of the wine-press of the wrath of God 
 were present to His mind, and from time to time 
 He impressed the sad truth upon His disciples, that 
 in the hour of test they might not be offended 
 in Him, their Crucified Saviour." 
 
 ♦'Deep, beyond the power of words to describe, as 
 were the depths of humiliation and sorrow to 
 which our Lord stooped in His work of atonement, 
 it was necessary for Him to descend here, as into 
 hell itself, that man might be saved from the ruin 
 Sin had wrought in his soul. Foolish and wrong 
 as our Saviour's course seemed to many when He 
 was upon earth. Time has vindicated Him and 
 shown that all that He did and said was done and 
 said with the pure wisdom of heaven. The bitter- 
 est fling that His enemies made against Him was 
 that he was possessed of a devil. But the progress 
 
28 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 of the Christian centuries has shown that Jesus 
 Christ came to destroy the works of the Devil and 
 to put Satan himself in chains unto judgment. Our 
 Lord was put to death on the charge of blasphemy. 
 But God the Father has disproved this charge by 
 raising His Son from the dead, and thus giving 
 assurance that He shall come again in power and 
 glory. Jesus of Nazareth has been vindicated as 
 the Christ of God in another way also, i. <??., by the 
 growing sentiment of men, for the time has come 
 when worldly and even evil men speak of Him 
 with profound respect. Most of all, however. He 
 has been vindicated by the life of inner joy and 
 peace that all those have found who have accepted 
 His invitation: ' Come unto Me, all ye that labor 
 and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.' " 
 
 " On the one side of the scale of our Redeemer's 
 life stands the fact, deep far beyond the measure of 
 our minds, ' He poured out His soul unto death ;' 
 but on the other the wonderful and blessed fact that 
 men are coming to see in the peaceful conquest of 
 the world by the Gospel of Christ, ' He shall see 
 of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.' " 
 
 So the pastor ended his argument from the 
 Scriptures late one Sunday night, and I made my 
 way home, there to spend the remainder of the 
 night searching the prophets for some word with 
 which to answer him. This I could not find, 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 20 
 
 though I continued my search all through the next 
 day and well into the night. 
 
 Finally sleep came, bringing the vision of the 
 Man of Sorrows as He stood, a thorn-crowned 
 King, in Pilate's judgment hall. I know very well 
 that those who have shut faith out from their 
 hearts as a childish thing, and who pride them- 
 selves on the scientific character of their thinking, 
 would have a dozen explanations for this vision of 
 the Christ ; but to me it remains one of the most 
 real facts of my whole life. As I looked on Him, 
 the Thorn-crowned One turned and gave me a 
 look, and that look said more plainly than words 
 could have done, " Art thou ashamed of Me ?" 
 From that instant I knew in my heart that He was 
 my Saviour-King, for whom I could live or die, as 
 He willed. 
 
 When conviction of the Truth had thus at last 
 come to me, I lost no time in making the fact 
 known to the world. At the first suitable oppor- 
 tunity I made public avowal of my faith in 
 Christ, and was received into the communion of the 
 Evangelical Lutheran Church through the sacra- 
 ment of baptism. My parents were very angry at 
 first ; but the Spirit of Truth must have spoken to 
 them also, for they soon became heartily reconciled 
 to my act, 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 FREEDOM FROM THE WEST. 
 
 A LL too soon it seemed my University life came 
 to an end. What had it been and to what did 
 it lead ? It had been broken in upon by the rude 
 hand of war ; yet it was no mere thing of shreds and 
 patches, but had a certain completeness of its own. 
 There had been a general view of the vast field of 
 knowledge, and, hasty as this had of necessity been, 
 the recollection of it gave me in whatsoever society 
 I afterwards found myself, the strength and freedom 
 of spirit that are the most valued possessions of the 
 educated man. 
 
 Still, it must be admitted, definiteness of aim had 
 been lacking in my studies, and the end of the 
 course left me without any fixed plan or purpose. 
 I did not feel satisfied to settle down to the practice 
 of a profession, and far less to the conduct of busi- 
 ness. Neither did the thought of a life given to 
 scientific experiment or scholarly research appeal 
 to me. Something of the unrest of the age had 
 seized me, and, like the eagle longing to try his 
 wings in the azure vault, I burned with the desire 
 to push out into the big world and mingle in the 
 swiftly changing scenes of public life, 
 30 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 31 
 
 Whither should I turn to find my hoped for 
 sphere ? Freedom was the bright vision that a few 
 of us cherished as our choicest day-dream, and so 
 the problem resolved itself into the search for the 
 abode of Freedom. It is to the western skies that 
 men have been accustomed to look to see the star of 
 Freedom twinkling forth its rays of hope. To the 
 West, therefore, I and others with me, had accus- 
 tomed ourselves to look often and long in those 
 days of the generous aspiration of youth. 
 
 America, with its Washington and the galaxy of 
 noble names associated with him ; the Declaration 
 of Independence, the noblest of the voices of Free- 
 dom ; the thoroughly matured Constitution of the 
 young nation of the West — these were the topics 
 of many an earnest discussion. Next in its place 
 in our interest stood France and her circle of gifted 
 ones crying aloud against the heaped- up burdens 
 that long centuries of Monarchy, Prelacy and 
 Aristocracy had fastened upon the necks of the 
 people. 
 
 What was there of Truth to give point to the 
 shafts of Voltaire ? Upon what foundation did the 
 work of Rousseau stand ? What of his " Back to 
 Nature" cry, and what is that Nature? Is it in- 
 deed a thing of innate nobility, or is it only 
 humanity in the rough, uncultured, if not, alas, 
 unwashed ? What was there for a nation's hope in 
 
32 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 Mirabeau ? Was there anything of good in Louis, 
 by the grace of God, King of the French ? Could 
 not some great and noble course be expected of 
 Lafayette, the hero-friend of the great Washington ? 
 Finally, what of the Third Estate? Was it not 
 indeed by a newly discovered " divine right " the 
 French nation, for does it not come to us as the 
 wisdom of the ages, Vox populi, vox Dei ? 
 
 There seemed to be but one sure way to answer 
 these questions that came crowding so fast upon 
 one another and that meant so much to the lover of 
 his kind, and that was to go and see. This con- 
 clusion was reached by two friends and myself 
 late one night, after hours of earnest discussion, 
 and it was a few weeks only until we put it into 
 execution. The increasing gloominess of the po- 
 litical situation in our own land helped to reconcile 
 our parents to the thought of our launching out 
 into the great world. In Poland the cause of Lib- 
 erty seemed all but hopeless ; in France, while 
 there was much to condemn, there was not a little 
 to admire. Perhaps a few earnest and disciplined 
 spirits, throwing themselves vigorously into the 
 scale, might be able in time to turn the balance 
 towards some such happy results as those to which 
 Providence had led the American patriots. Carried 
 away, as we were, by such youthful dreams, we 
 could hardly await the time set for our departure. 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 33 
 
 Then too France was to me my mother's native 
 land, and its language a second mother tongue. 
 
 Three score years have passed away since my two 
 friends and myself took our places in the lumber- 
 ing old carriage that was to bear us over the first 
 stage of our journey westward ; but I remember my 
 feelings as though our leaving home were an event ' 
 of yesterday. There was the strong glow of youth- 
 ful anticipation uplifting my spirit as on a wave, 
 yet over all was the shadow of the sorrow of part- 
 ing from a father who had been to me Wisdom 
 itself and from a mother who ever showed herself 
 Love. Had I known that I was to see them but 
 once more in this life, and then amid the confusion 
 and haste of War, the cloud of sorrow would most 
 certainly havel^overed the entire sky. 
 
 As it was, in the ignorance that is bliss, we jour- 
 neyed away from home and loved ones into the 
 great world that had no more thought for us than 
 for the dust blown along its highways. Small as 
 was the part we filled then or ever afterwards in 
 the affairs of the world, we saw ourselves magni- 
 fied many times through the medium of the egotism 
 of youth and gravely passed our all-decisive judg- 
 ment on people and things as we met them in our 
 travel, or as word came to us about them from the 
 human hive toward which our journey tended. As 
 we drew near the borders of France we met many 
 
 3 
 
34 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 representatives of a class that alternately attracted 
 and repelled us. This was the class of Emigrant 
 Nobles, driven from home and native land by the 
 dread of the Commune and eagerly seeking to 
 hasten the day of their vengeance by making com- 
 mon cause with their country's hereditary foes. 
 At first we felt drawn to these people because of 
 their misfortunes and their culture ; but, as we came 
 to understand their imperious pride and heartless- 
 ness toward those beneath them in the social scale, 
 we agreed that these had another spirit from our- 
 selves and held somewhat aloof from their com- 
 pany. 
 
 As all things mundane have their end, our long 
 journey was at last over and we found ourselves in 
 Paris. Very different was the Paris of that day 
 from the beautiful city of to-day, and just as diflfer- 
 ent was it from the city of our dreams. Despite its 
 many stately buildings, the Paris we looked on 
 with such eager eyes in those days now so long 
 past was for the most part a city of narrow and 
 gloomy streets, savoring far more of the Middle 
 Ages than of what we of this land would consider 
 the living Present. 
 
 What most men would call chance, but what I 
 prefer to call Providence, guided us in our choice 
 of lodgings. These were not only comfortable and 
 reasonable, but were also most desirable for us on 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTOR V. 35 
 
 account of the personality of our landlord. He 
 held some petty position (I forget just what) in the 
 public service that gave him the best opportunity 
 for forming opinions of those who came and went 
 as the leaders of the people. He was, moreover, a 
 quiet, earnest man, more given to thought than to 
 speech, and above all things a true patriot. As day 
 after day we gave ourselves to the study of the city 
 and more especially of the people and were often in 
 great perplexity what to think, this man took a 
 true, fatherly interest in us and gave us much 
 valuable counsel. 
 
 All too soon we found out what truth there is in 
 the statement, " 'Tis distance lends enchantment to 
 the view." One after another the bright visions 
 we had so fondly cherished of a sovereign and 
 enlightened people ruling itself with justice and 
 wisdom showed themselves to be the emptiest 
 illusions. The much-advertised French Constitu- 
 tion may have gained some substantiality after 
 many years had passed over it and given it a cer- 
 tain standing ; but in those days it was no more 
 substantial than the cloud bank that the heat of a 
 summer day piles up against the horizon. As for 
 the National Assembly it was but a rope of sand, 
 or at best one of straw, not to be depended upon 
 for the safety of any cause. The Press was influ- 
 ential then as now, and the Placard and the Pam- 
 
36 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 phlet spoke to their thousands, but these were as 
 irresponsible as the winds that blow now east, now 
 west. Somewhat more stable in their positions 
 were the Clubs : yet it was no pure, life-giving 
 water that flowed from the most of these, but a 
 very turbid stream, staining rather than cleansing 
 men's spirits. 
 
 It was not these things I have named, but the 
 people that from the very day of our arrival forced 
 itself on our attention and held us as under a spell. 
 The French people ! What a favored nation by 
 the gifts of Nature, blending the strength of the 
 Frank or Teuton with the versatility and vivacity 
 of the Latin, and yet somehow how lacking ! Even 
 in the space of a few weeks how often did we not 
 see that people change almost in a moment from 
 the peaceful charm of a lake or sea glittering and 
 rippling in the sun to the demoniac fury of the 
 tempest. We had come to France strongly preju- 
 diced in favor of its people, but, as we observed 
 that people in its revolutionary throes daily becom- 
 ing a thing of terror to others and even to itself, 
 we lost our admiration for it and came to consider 
 it as little more than a rabble and to say among 
 ourselves : Odiprofanum vtilgum. 
 
 And yet there was something pathetic, we felt, 
 in the struggle of a people striving, however ignor- 
 antly and blindly, to be free. Here was a blind- 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 37 
 
 folded giant, striking out in all directions in his 
 rage. What might that giant not accomplish, 
 were his eyes to be unbandaged and he himself 
 rightly instructed ! What might not the gifted 
 French people have wrought out for itself and for 
 humanity in general, had it been guided in its 
 struggle for Liberty by the light of that Word of 
 eternal Truth wherein Israel of old and the truly 
 great nations of to-day walked and are now walk- 
 ing ! Had France walked in the light of the Truth 
 that makes men free, her blood-stained Revolution 
 would have been replaced by a life-giving Refor- 
 mation, and she would stand forth to-day a queen 
 among the nations of the earth. 
 
 But France was not a land of the Open Bible, 
 and so the fires of Revolution, fed by the passions 
 of infuriated men, burned ever more fiercely until 
 the fire burned itself out. When we arrived in 
 Paris the fires of men's passions were burning the 
 hottest, for the Commune, with the de-humanized 
 Robespierre as its high-priest and with the guillo- 
 tine as its altar, was supreme in the city and 
 throughout France. I need not tell the oft-told 
 story of those evil days : enough if I tell what be- 
 fell my comrades and myself 
 
 When we had come to what we thought was a 
 fair understanding of the situation, I was chosen 
 spokesman, and attempted to deliver a few care- 
 
38 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 fully considered patriotic sentiments on the duty of 
 the citizen. As the custom of the day was, I spoke 
 standing on the open street where a small crowd 
 had gathered, my unusual stature making me a 
 conspicuous figure. I tried to speak in plain 
 words and to the point ; but the sullen demeanor of 
 the crowd and an occasional word of hostile com- 
 ment showed me in a very few minutes that, to say 
 the least, speaker and audience were not en rap- 
 port^ so I brought my patriotic eloquence to an 
 abrupt conclusion. After earnest reflection we 
 concluded that this most evident lack of fellow 
 feeling between ourselves and those who then and 
 there represented the French people lay not merely 
 in the fact that we were clean, well-fed and well- 
 clothed ; while the majority of these were unkempt, 
 hungry and ragged ; but in the deeper-lying fact 
 that we stood for Christian patriotism, and these 
 for brutish violence. As a matter of duty I made 
 two more efforts to instill this rabble with some 
 idea of what the word Patriot really meant, but 
 the outcome was not happy. The first time I had 
 spoken but a few minutes when paving stones were 
 hurled at my head, and it was only by the elo- 
 quence of the fist freely bestowed that we made 
 our escape from the canaille. On the last occasion 
 I had hardly begun speaking to a little group 
 when the crowd came flocking about us, some of 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 39 
 
 them with swords and pikes, with which they 
 threatened us. As we wore our heavy Polish 
 sabres by our sides, and had some skill in their 
 use, by quick work we succeeded in striking the 
 weapons out of their hands, while we made our 
 escape amid shouts of " Down with the Aristo- 
 crats ! " Our kindly-disposed landlord told us that 
 evening what our own common sense had already 
 made clear to us, viz. : that our careers as French 
 patriots were now ended. 
 
 After this it was clearly unsafe for us to walk 
 the streets, except late at night, for, if we escaped 
 death at the hands of the mob, it lay in wait for us 
 in the form of the murderous suspicion that would 
 have delivered us to prison, and then by a short 
 step to the guillotine. In those evil days when 
 human tigers roamed the city, craving blood, there 
 was but one thing for peace-loving strangers like 
 ourselves to do, and that was to get away as 
 quickly as possible. But this step we found to our 
 sorrow was more easily decided upon than taken, 
 so murderous was the spirit of the rabble then in 
 power toward any who might come under the 
 faintest shadow of the suspicion of favoring the 
 hated Aristocrats. The old fable of the visitors to 
 the lion's den seemed about to be acted out by our 
 unfortunate selves, for none were permitted to 
 leave the city without passports certifying that 
 
40 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 they were loyal citizens of the French Commune, 
 and such passports we could not get, though our 
 friend exerted himself on our behalf to the point of 
 endangering his life. As our situation was daily 
 becoming more precarious, we resolved to cut our 
 Gordian knot by enlisting in the Army of the 
 French Republic. There was more satisfaction in 
 this course than might at first appear, for, while 
 what should have been the fountain head of Lib- 
 erty was pouring forth a turbid stream, the armed 
 forces of the Republic were even then beating 
 back the old feudal tyranny from the frontier. 
 
 We accordingly betook ourselves to the recruit- 
 ing station, and were happy to demonstrate with 
 foils upon the persons of those in charge that we 
 were acquainted with the use of weapons. Our 
 enlistment promptly followed, and very soon after- 
 wards we had our first taste of the hardness of War, 
 by being assigned to different regiments, and thus 
 separated. It was only at long intervals that we 
 were able to meet, to recount our experiences and 
 to live over youthful days. Both of my comrades 
 quitted themselves like men, rose to some rank, 
 and finally died the soldier's death. 
 
 As for myself I was given the rank of sergeant, 
 and soon after sent away to join the forces besieg- 
 ing Toulon. Just here the insignificant stream of 
 my life joins the mighty current of History, for I 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 41 
 
 had my part in the event that has made the name 
 Toulon one of note. You know from your reading 
 how the forts, supported by an English fleet in the 
 harbor, stood unshaken by all our attack. Then 
 it was that a certain Captain of Artillery, Bona" 
 parte by name, came forward with his plan for 
 carrying one fort by assault, maintaining that its 
 capture would at once render the enemy's whole 
 position untenable. The plan was approved by 
 the military council, and Captain Bonaparte was 
 given the privilege of carrying it through, aided 
 by what volunteers he could get for his forlorn 
 hope. The venture appealed to my youthful 
 spirit, as I could not but remember the stronghold 
 of Mt. Zion, and how, despite its strength, David's 
 men of war had carried it by assault. I well recall 
 that first experience under my new commander. 
 After a fierce artillery duel and under cover of 
 attack at two other points, we crept stealthily 
 along the bed of a ravine, and then came the rush 
 over the open ground and through the hail of 
 death up to the guns of the "Little Gibralter." 
 Thanks to my stature, I was the first man over the 
 parapet, and with my long sword arm I was able 
 to beat back a few of the defenders and make way 
 for some of my comrades. These came svv^arming 
 into the fort, and soon it was ours and its guns 
 turned on the other forts, and then on the ships. 
 
42 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 As the young military genius had declared, this 
 fort was the key to the whole situation, and the 
 ships were forced to retire and Toulon surrendered. 
 My part in the victory brought me words of recog- 
 nition from the leader and a Sub-lieutenancy. 
 
 However, the pleasure I felt at my promotion 
 was short-lived. Bitterness and wrath took its 
 place as I was compelled to witness the awful 
 vengeance the army was ordered to take on those 
 who had so bravely resisted it. The defenders of 
 Toulon, yes, and even non-combatants and women, 
 were killed by wholesale butchery, being stood up 
 in companies to be shot, or being bound hand and 
 foot and drowned. Honorable soldiers could not 
 be relied upon to do this work of massacre ; but 
 duly authorized bands of cut-throats were sent out 
 from Paris to go from city to city, butchering all 
 who could be suspected of not being in sympathy 
 with the peculiar variety of Liberty they repre- 
 sented. I was sick at heart at the report and 
 occasional sight of such worse than brutish ferocity 
 and should have quit the army just then, had there 
 been any way of safety open for me. I was some- 
 what comforted, however, by the assurance of 
 several older men that the end of the French 
 Terror was almost at hand, and that then the 
 tables would be turned and the earth rid of many 
 monsters. 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 43 
 
 The most important result of the victory at 
 Toulon to me personally was the favor of Bona- 
 parte, now General, that I had won and that (little 
 did I dream of it then) was to attach me to him 
 and his most wonderful fortunes for more than a 
 score of years. 
 
 The citadel at Toulon was taken December 
 17th, 1793, and for the next six months I followed 
 Bonaparte from point to point, through Southern 
 France and Northern Italy, as he inspected and 
 strengthened fortifications and armaments. He 
 then went to Paris to push his fortunes at the 
 fountain-head of power, and I followed a soldier's 
 lot under several commanders for a year more 
 before I again saw my predestined military chief. 
 During the year 1794 the fires of Patriotism 
 burned with a brilliant flame, especially in the 
 armies of France, and notable victories were won 
 on every frontier over the old feudal foes. 
 
 During this time I served my apprenticeship in 
 the hard trade of War, so that when I returned to 
 Paris in the summer of 1795 it was as the exper- 
 ienced soldier and officer of recognized standing, 
 fearing the ravings of the mob as little as I feared 
 the howling of the storm. Whether this was 
 poetic justice or not I do not know, but it was at 
 least a fact that I was one of General Bonaparte's 
 trusted aids on that memorable Fifth of October, 
 
44 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 when the fiery scourge of grape shot, falling merci- 
 lessly upon the'u, taught the rabble the great 
 lesson of respect for the powers that be. 
 
 As there was a brief lull in the storm of war, I 
 spent the winter of 1795-96 in Paris, becoming 
 acquainted with the city and learning something 
 of the winds and currents of influence that exert so 
 mighty a power over the lives of men. And this 
 was a notable winter in Paris, one of the gayest 
 that even gay Paris had as yet known. Neverthe- 
 less it was a strange and often an unhallowed 
 gaiety, akin to the nervous bravado of a man just 
 reprieved from the scaffold. By way of re-action 
 from the long night of dread from which they had 
 hardly emerged the Parisians now gave themselves 
 up to all manner of gaiety and indulgence. Strange 
 as it may seem, even those who had been robbed of 
 their nearest and dearest by the guillotine joined 
 in the merriment, yes, mingled freely with those 
 who had hurried the loved ones to a cruel death. 
 
 It was with mixed feelings that I took my place 
 in this strange society of Revolutionary Paris. 
 While enjoying life with all the vigor and spirit of 
 youth, I can say that neither at this time nor after- 
 wards amid the unceasing temptations of camp 
 and of court did I ever forget my Christian pro- 
 fession or dishonor it as much as by an oath. Yet 
 not I, but Christ who strengthened me. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 MARS IN THE ASCENDENCY. 
 
 WITH the appointment of General Bonaparte to 
 the command of the Army of Italy his military 
 genius may be said to have been fully revealed to 
 the world, and his career of military glory to have 
 been begun. 
 
 Nothing happens in this universe without its 
 adequate cause, and so it was with the glory of 
 Napoleon, which for the next twenty years lit up 
 the skies of Europe and indeed of the whole civilized 
 world with its mighty illumination. Victory fol- 
 lowed victory in this campaign, but these came not 
 by accident nor yet by "Destiny." There were 
 forces of tireless energy in the man that far surpassed 
 the average powers of human endurance, and these 
 made possible the acquisition of vast stores of 
 knowledge in all the fields of activity which he 
 entered. "Labor," said Napoleon, "is my ele- 
 ment. I have found the limit of my strength in 
 eye and limb ; I have never found the limit of my 
 capacity for work." 
 
 Not only did Napoleon know the Science of 
 War as a master, but he also knew the conditions, 
 geographical, political and social of the lands and 
 
46 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 people with which he came in contact. Moreover 
 he knew these pivotal facts, not after years of dear- 
 bought experience and reflection had forced them 
 upon him, but at the time when the knowledge 
 meant almost unlimited power, viz., when it was 
 needed. Finally he understood in many of its 
 secret workings that which is the most important 
 factor of all in the great game of Life — the human 
 heart. Especially did he know to touch with a 
 master hand the chords of the heart of the French 
 people. In witness of this fact let his Proclama- 
 tion to the Army of Italy speak. " Soldiers, you 
 are naked and badly fed ; the government owes you 
 much and can give you nothing. Your patience 
 and the courage you have exhibited amid these 
 rocks are worthy of admiration ; but you gain no 
 fame, no glory falls upon you here. I will lead 
 you into the fertile plains of the world, rich prov- 
 inces and large cities will fall into your power ; 
 there you will find honor, fame and abundance. 
 Soldiers of Italy, would you fail in courage and 
 
 perseverance 
 
 ?" 
 
 Two mighty springs of human activity are here 
 laid bare. These are the love of Glory and the 
 love of Gain, and they are the forces that move the 
 millions. The love of Gain, the unholy desire for 
 the lands and treasures of others, this has ever been 
 the all-controlling motive that has led men to fly 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 47 
 
 at one another, weapons in hand. This motive in- 
 fluenced many who served under Napoleon ; yet, 
 after all, it was the other incentive that swayed 
 the most. With a skill that must have been given 
 by the Prince of this world himself. Napoleon 
 sounded the note. Glory, and it found an instan- 
 taneous answer in the spirit of the people. Not 
 only were the soldiers carried away by his phantasm 
 of Glory, but it swept before it the whole people in 
 one mad rush to ruin. What its effect was, as used 
 by Napoleon upon the armies and people of France, 
 let twenty years of almost incessant war and the 
 sacrifices in battle or by disease or famine of three 
 million of France's bravest sons answer. 
 
 But to return to the Army of Italy. The victo- 
 ries promised by Napoleon were speedily won, and 
 Piedmont was conquered and the way opened for 
 advantageous peace with the petty kingdoms and 
 states of Italy and also for the struggle with the 
 world-power, Austria, now arousing herself for 
 the fiery ordeal of battle. 
 
 Time does not permit me to trace the events of 
 the seemingly unequal struggle between the youth- 
 ful General Bonaparte with his small army and the 
 veteran Austrian Generals, Wurmser and Alvinzi, 
 commanding large armies, or to show how by the 
 almost superhuman vigor and celerity of the French 
 Caesar the tide of war was made to flow most ruin- 
 
48 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 ously against tlie armies of Austria. That victory 
 did not flow of itself to the standards of Napoleon, 
 let the defeat of the French in the Tyrol and before 
 the heights of Caldiero testify, and also the three 
 days' desperate struggle that ended in the victory 
 of Areola, only when Bonaparte himself snatched 
 the banner of a retreating regiment and rushed with 
 it across the bridge swept by the fire of the Aus- 
 triaus. 
 
 It would be of interest could I tell you of the 
 conqueror's first essay at the role of statesman when 
 in Milan he held court and by diplomacy or, it 
 might be, by his ipse dixit^ fashioned new republics 
 on the French model out of the eld feudal and 
 aristocratic domains. Not entirely lacking in 
 interest was the young French Alexander's 
 pilgrimage, if not to the shrine of Jupiter, at least 
 to the Eternal City and to his spiritual father, the 
 Pope, On this delightful occasion the latter 
 worthy was persuaded to hand over several 
 important cities, 30,000,000 frances and certain 
 treasures of Art for the benefit of needy France. 
 
 I might state here in passing that the only 
 booty I ever took in war, except for the needs of 
 the hour, was the sword of Sobieski, Poland's 
 hero-king, which I found at Loretto and afterward 
 gave to Poland's last hero, Kosciusko. 
 
 In April, 1797 the preliminaries of peace between 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 49 
 
 France and Austria were settled and the victor 
 returned to Milan, to his loved wife and to the 
 court he had there established, to rest from his 
 labors and to harvest their fruits. A grand 
 reception was tendered Napoleon by the aristocracy 
 of Italy in the Palace Serbelloni, and a few days 
 later he removed with his retinue and following 
 to the Castle of Montebello. Here in the midst of 
 beautiful scenery and stately surroundings the 
 conqueror held court, moulded provinces and even 
 kingdoms to his will and planned for the wonderful 
 Future that he now realized was to be his. 
 
 You whose lives have been spent in this land of 
 Democracy have no conception of the feeling akin 
 to reverence that the average European of last 
 century cherished toward people of rank. This 
 feeling being considered, it was truly a matter for 
 astonishment to note the throng that gathered 
 week after week at Montebello to do honor to 
 General Bonaparte, the plain man of the people. 
 Ambassadors and nobles of the highest rank, with 
 their ladies, hastened to court the favor of the m.an 
 who but a few short years before had been 
 ridiculed as possessing nothing but a hat and a 
 sword. Men of intellect even, philosophers, poets 
 and artists, whom Bonaparte invited and urged to 
 come as his guests, showed themselves ill at ease 
 on first meeting the man whose trade was War. 
 4 
 
50 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS. 
 
 Surely, it would seem, it is the mailed hand that 
 rules the world. 
 
 All this homage was very sweet to Bonaparte 
 and his gracious wife, the I^ady Josephine. Each 
 of them had tasted the bitter cup of Distress, but 
 now it was theirs to enjoy together the nectar and 
 ambrosia of Success. Both were still young 
 enough and free enough from the pessimism that 
 time was to bring to enter fully into the joy of 
 their first great triumph. As a trusted and favored 
 aid of the General's and member of his household 
 I shared in these triumphal days, and they still 
 light up the chambers of Memory with their 
 pleasing radiance. 
 
 After three months of almost endless festivity, 
 reaching its climax in the magnificent fetes in 
 Venice gotten up in honor of the gracious wife of 
 the mighty soldier, there was an abrupt conclu- 
 sion to it all in the settlement of the Peace of 
 Campo Formio. Bonaparte, wearying of the pro- 
 crastinating policy of Austria, cut the Gordian 
 knot in a most unlooked-for way. One day at a 
 dinner party, snatching up a costly porcelain cup 
 belonging to a set given his host, the Count von 
 Coblentz, by the Empress Catharine, he dashed 
 it to the floor and exclaimed in tones of passion : 
 ' In fourteen days I will dash to pieces the 
 Austrian monarchy as I now break this.' 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 51 
 
 Such masterful conduct brought about the de- 
 sired result and the next day the Austrian diplo- 
 mats signed the treaty of peace, Austria being given 
 the Queen City, Venice, while France was made 
 mistress of the Rhine and felt that she had 
 crowned herself with the laurels of victory. 
 
 But France was not satisfied with seeing the 
 laurel wreath on her own head ; she found a 
 greater joy in crowning her hero. So it was that 
 on Bonaparte's return to Paris the very street on 
 which his home was situated was re-named " Street 
 of Victory." Moreover, the unpretentious house 
 that he called home must be re-built on a grand 
 scale that it might meet the requirements of a pub- 
 lic character and accommodate those who crowded 
 to do him honor. But even this did not satisfy the 
 hero-worshiping people, and a great festival must 
 be devised at which the multitude could do rever- 
 ence to their demi-god. Accordingly the Directory 
 accorded to Bonaparte a magnificent reception at 
 the Palace of the Luxemburg. In the great court 
 before the Palace a towering platform was erected 
 and ornamented with huge statues of Freedom, 
 Equality and Peace. Around this fane extended 
 another platform, furnished with seats for the 
 National Assembly, the Five Directors and other 
 dignitaries and decorated with the banners cap- 
 tured in the Italian war. 
 
52 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 The central figure in all this pomp appeared in a 
 manner befitting the soldier — clad in the plain 
 uniform that he had worn on the field of battle and 
 quietly listening to the long orations of fulsome 
 praise directed at him by the perfidious Talleyrand 
 and the envious Barras. 
 
 It soon became evident that France was not 
 large enough to hold at the same time the Direc- 
 tory and the hero of the people, so various efforts 
 were made to induce the conqueror to betake him- 
 self beyond the borders. Finally an Egyptian 
 expedition of conquest was suggested, and this plan 
 just fitted in with certain wild dreams of Oriental 
 empire that Bonaparte had been cherishing for 
 years. Off" he went then to out-Alexander Alexan- 
 der and to demonstrate anew the truth of the old 
 saying, "Whom the gods would destroy they first 
 make mad." We know what the outcome of such 
 an expedition was destined to be, for we know by 
 the light of the truth that has been given us how 
 pitiable is the folly of even the greatest man who 
 presumes, like a Nebuchadnezzar, to rule and boast 
 himself upon earth as Almighty God. 
 
 It went with the Egyptian expedition and its 
 leader as the sober-minded few had foreseen. At 
 first there was the victory of the discipline and arms 
 of the West over the untaught valor of the East, 
 but afterwards came the bitter defeat at Acre and 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 53 
 
 the necessity of the leader's return home on a pre- 
 text. 
 
 Much was written and spoken at the time of the 
 Conquest of Egypt, but, according to my humble 
 judgment, this notable event in the World's history 
 is to be estimated as of equal value with its later 
 companion-piece, the Destruction of Moscow. As 
 I was not one of Bonapartes confidants and com- 
 panions in his hasty departure from Egypt, but 
 had some months more of hard service against the 
 fierce hordes of the desert, I may not be strictly 
 impartial just here in my estimate of his Oriental 
 conquests. This much, however, I gained from 
 the experience that, when some years later on the 
 retreat from Moscow I nearly perished from the 
 cold, I could in imagination see myself sweltering 
 in the blistering sands of Egypt. 
 
 But to return to my Captain. It was the con- 
 sideration of his own interests that sent Napoleon 
 hurrying back to France ; yet it was a fact that 
 France needed him or some other of his spirit. 
 The ship of state was tossing in troubled waters 
 and a strong hand was needed at the helm. In 
 Italy the armies of Austria and Russia had swept 
 all before them and French dominion and French 
 prestige were in that land things of the past. In 
 France itself matters were in great confusion and 
 the well-meaning part of the population in great 
 
54 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 distress. The nation was split into factions, the 
 party of moderation being ground between the 
 upper millstone of the unrelenting royalist con- 
 spirators and the nether one of the red republicans 
 whose whole aim and endeavor was the restoration 
 of the bloody rule of the Terror. Patriotism hardly 
 existed except as a name, and grasping party spirit 
 was all-powerful throughout the land, bringing 
 civil war and anarchy in its train. A strong per- 
 sonality was sorely needed just then in the arena 
 of French political life, and when Bonaparte 
 stepped upon French soil, preceded as he had 
 been by reports of his Egyptian victories, Aboukir 
 and Tabor, the great majority of the people bade 
 him a most hearty welcome. 
 
 However, enemies who were at once powerful 
 and bitter were not lacking to Napoleon. But 
 forewarned is fore-armed, and here a faithful wife 
 stood as a shield beween Napoleon and hidden dan- 
 ger. Josephine had womanly tact as it has been 
 given to but few, and she used her talent to the 
 utmost, mingling every day with people of influ- 
 ence and even with those whom she knew to be 
 her husband's enemies. The general drift of the 
 political world and especially the disposition of this 
 one or that one in the place of power toward Napo- 
 leon she recorded day after day through many 
 months in a diary. This she handed her loved. 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 55 
 
 one on his return, that he might know and utilize 
 all that could be known in the strange realm of the 
 thoughts and passions of men. 
 
 The Directory had not failed to note the enthu- 
 siasm of the people over the very name of Bona- 
 parte, and knew with the instinct of politicians 
 that, unless something could be done to check 
 this growing ascendancy, their day of power was 
 at an end. They resolved accordingly to arrest 
 Bonaparte on the charge of conspiracy to destroy 
 the government, and arranged that the arrest 
 should take place the next day, as he was return- 
 ing to Paris from his chateau of Malmaison. 
 
 But this plot was thwarted by an unexpected 
 hand. The next day the ever-watchful Josephine 
 was attending a party in Paris and overheard a 
 gentleman tell his friend that he surmised, from 
 something told him, that some influential person 
 was that evening to be arrested. Excusing her- 
 self at the earliest possible moment, Josephine 
 drove with all speed to the commanding officer of 
 the Directory guards, who was a warm friend of 
 Bonaparte's, and requested that a company of 
 grenadiers be sent at once to Malmaison. The 
 soldiers were promptly sent and the danger 
 averted, more especially as the Directory learned 
 through spies who shadowed Josephine that their 
 plot was discovered. By way of throwing dust 
 
66 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 into people's eyes the Directors had an arrest made 
 at the appointed time — that of a rich German mer- 
 chant then residing in Paris, whom they charged 
 with plotting with the enemies of France. 
 
 The fair words of the Directors counted for 
 nothing at all with Napoleon, for he realized the 
 situation to a hair's breadth. " Everyone," he said 
 to his brother Joseph, "desires a more central 
 government. Our dreams of a republic are the 
 illusions of youth. To-day the people are turning 
 their hopes toward me ; to-morrow it will be to- 
 ward someone else." But Napoleon was not in the 
 habit of waiting for to-morrow. With him to 
 resolve was to act. On the eighteenth of that 
 same month, Brumaire, then he gave a great break- 
 fast to those whom he counted his friends, and 
 especially to the army oflScers of rank. While the 
 guests were gathering, a friend of Napoleon's in 
 the Council of the Elders made this motion : " In 
 consideration of the intense political excitement 
 which prevails in Paris, it is necessary to remove 
 the sessions to St. Cloud, and to give to General 
 Bonaparte the supreme command of the troops." 
 
 After an exciting debate this motion prevailed 
 and was reported to Napoleon. He saw that the 
 hour of Destiny had come (with some little help 
 on his part) and, telling his company that at last 
 the moment had arrived to give France peace and 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 57 
 
 rest, and that he would do this, called them to 
 follow him. Supported then by a brilliant follow- 
 ing. Napoleon made his way to the Council of the 
 Elders, to express his thanks for the honor shown 
 him and to swear to safeguard the country's 
 liberty. The troops were then reviewed at the 
 Tuilleries and some of them stationed about both 
 the Luxemburg, the former place of session, and 
 St. Cloud, whither both the Deputies and the 
 Elders had adjourned. After vainly protesting 
 against a situation that they were powerless to 
 alter, three of the Directors resigned. 
 
 But the liberties of a nation were not to be over- 
 thrown quite so easily, and the next day, the 19th 
 Brumaire, was to be the true Day of Fate. The 
 Five Hundred assembled in their new quarters at 
 St. Cloud and entered most earnestly upon the 
 discussion of what was to be done in view of the 
 resignation of the Directory. Just when the argu- 
 ment was at its height, who should appear in their 
 assembly but Napoleon? Immediately there fol- 
 lowed a most memorable scene. Napoleon met 
 the first reproaches of the Deputies with the 
 boastful threat: "Remember I walk with the 
 goddess of Fortune, accompanied by the god of 
 War," but was silenced by the cries of "Traitor," 
 "Cromwell," and a perfect torrent of bitter accu- 
 sations. Vainly he protested his loyalty to France 
 
58 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 and to the Constitution ; he was overwhelmed by 
 the volume of invective and derision hurled at 
 him and became completely bewildered. Sud- 
 denly he turned from his accusers and made for 
 the door, exclaiming : " Who loves me, let him 
 follow me." Then, strange to tell, history re- 
 peated itself and this modern Csesar actually 
 fainted into the arms of his friends. Well says the 
 master-poet : 
 
 " He had a fever when he was in Spain, 
 And, when the fit was on him, I did mark 
 That he did shake; 'tis true, this god did shake; 
 His coward lips did from their color fly ; 
 And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world, 
 Did lose his lustre. I did hear him groan; 
 Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans 
 Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, 
 Alas, it cried, Give me some drink, Titinius." 
 
 But one repulse, however sharp, did not mean 
 defeat to a seasoned soldier like Napoleon. At 
 the end of half an hour he re-entered the hall, 
 surrounded by his officers, to face his accusers and 
 give them a hint of the operation of the Law 
 of Might. By this time Lucien Bonaparte, who 
 was President of the Five Hundred, had been 
 fairly forced from his seat for shielding his brother 
 in his unlawful course and for refusing to declare 
 him an outlaw. But Napoleon was equally mind- 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 59 
 
 ful of his statesman brother, and sent a company 
 of grenadiers into the hall to deliver him from his 
 evil plight. Nor was Lucien tardy in taking up 
 his role. Turning to the troops, he ordered them 
 to protect the President of the Five Hundred, to 
 defend the Constitution attacked by fanatics, and 
 to obey General Bonaparte, the authorized pro- 
 tector of the Republic. By way of dramatic 
 climax to this scene of the great play Lucien drew 
 his sword and, turning its point towards Napo- 
 leon's breast, exclaimed : "I swear to pierce even 
 my brother's heart, if he ever dares touch the 
 liberty of France." 
 
 These words fired the enthusiasm of the soldiers 
 and with hearty good will they obeyed Napoleon's 
 command and charged into the hall, driving the 
 Council before them like sheep. Other means 
 than force were not despised; money was used 
 that day to the extent of more than one million 
 francs, while Lucien gathered a " Rump Parlia- 
 ment," once more assumed the presidential chair, 
 and had a provisional committee chosen to con- 
 sist of three members to be known as Consuls. 
 Napoleon was one of these, while the other two 
 were merely figureheads, who fortunately for 
 themselves realized their situation and remained 
 passive. 
 
 So it was that Napoleon made his entrance into 
 
60 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 the Luxemburg, nominally as First Consul, but 
 really as the Dictator of France, who was in a few 
 weeks to make his triumphal entry into the Tuil- 
 leries, to reign there under one or another title as 
 the most masterful king who had ever trodden 
 those stately palace halls. I cannot take the time 
 to tell you of the "republican court" that was 
 maintained in this palace with ever increasing 
 splendor ; sufiicient to say, it was the days of 
 Montebello lived over on a grander scale. 
 
 I must pass on to tell of an achievement that 
 was characteristic of my Captain, and that added 
 much to his glory. This was the Second Italian 
 Campaign, and it was notable, not only as a signal 
 victory over great armies, but even more as a 
 victory over the forces of Nature. 
 
 Napoleon had not forgotten the French reverses 
 in Italy, and early in May, 1800, when Winter 
 still held the mountain passes in his fetters of ice, 
 the Man of Destiny rushed an army southward, 
 scaled the icy barriers and hurled his human 
 avalanche down upon the plains of Italy and upon 
 his astonished foes. The decisive victory of 
 Marengo, June 14th, was the outcome of this ven- 
 ture, and again the Parisians had the indescribable 
 joy of welcoming a returning conqueror. 
 
 For the human unit, the soldier, there was 
 untold hardship in this brilliant move. You will 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 61 
 
 hardly believe me when I tell you that for days 
 those of us who formed the advance guard had as 
 our only food the inner bark of trees. 
 
 In the midst of this hardship occurred one of the 
 pleasantest incidents of my whole career. A com- 
 rade and myself, detailed on reconnoitring duty, 
 had made our way over the ice well up into the 
 Pass of St. Bernard. Evening had come on, and 
 after several days of the hardest service with the 
 least possible rest and food, both we and our horses 
 were about ready to drop. We had stopped before 
 a solitary house to ask some direction, when a 
 sweet-faced little girl stepped out on the porch and 
 invited us to enter- Her father then appeared and 
 repeated the invitation, so we dismounted, put up 
 our jaded horses, and let ourselves be persuaded to 
 spend the evening and finally to stay until morn- 
 ing. We enjoyed most keenly those hours in a 
 well-ordered, happy home, and Napoleon was 
 served none the worse, for, without that warm food 
 and that night's rest, we could not have kept up 
 under the hardships of the next days. 
 
 The victory of Marengo brought Napoleon new 
 fame, but this in turn brought him the deadly 
 hatred of those who now saw their own plans swept 
 entirely away by the ijiighty progress of his career. 
 Bourbon and Red Republican were at last of one 
 mind, for they agreed in hating the Corsican usurp- 
 
62 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 er. One plot after another aiming at the assassi- 
 nation of Napoleon was laid bare by the vigilant 
 Parisian police, until Josephine, in her solicitude 
 for her husband, found herself living in an atmos- 
 phere of terror. All things mundane have an end, 
 and so there came an end to these plots, and a very- 
 unexpected one it was. 
 
 Hayden's oratorio of Creation was to be given at 
 the Grand Opera, and all fashionable Paris was 
 hastening that way, to see and to be seen. There 
 was company for dinner that evening at Napoleon's 
 table, and his party was accordingly a little late in 
 starting. A slight additional delay was caused by 
 the trifling matter of the arrangement of a Per- 
 sian shawl on Josephine's shoulders. General Rapp 
 insisting that it was not becomingly draped. 
 Meanwhile Napoleon had driven off, and Josephine 
 and her attendants hastened to follow. Their car- 
 riage had just reached the Place de Carrotisal vihen 
 the whole place was lit up as by the glare of 
 lightning, and a deafening explosion was heard ; 
 while the glass of the carriage windows was blown 
 in upon them, cutting Hortense somewhat seriously 
 on the arm. 
 
 Leaving the ladies, Rapp ran ahead to learn the 
 fate of Napoleon. The Man of Destiny was found 
 seated quietly in his box scrutinizing the audience 
 through his glass. Fifteen people were killed, 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 63 
 
 thirty severely wounded and forty houses badly 
 damaged by the explosion of the infernal machine, 
 and great indeed was the indignation of the French 
 people when the facts of this diabolical plot came 
 to be known. 
 
 This wave of popular indignation lifted Bona- 
 parte to that place in the nation's esteem that he 
 saw that he was at last free to destroy his enemies. 
 Accordingly he had himself empowered " to re- 
 move from Paris those persons whose presence the 
 Consuls considered dangerous to the public secur- 
 ity." On the strength of this enactment Napoleon 
 brought to pass the execution of a number of his 
 most bitter enemies and the banishment to a living 
 death in Cayenne of one hundred and thirty others 
 who were suspected of dissatisfaction toward the 
 administration. 
 
 The way was now open and the opportune 
 moment had arrived for Napoleon to take the last 
 step in his dizzy ascent — the step that leads to the 
 throne. For several years Napoleon under the 
 title of First Consul had enjoyed all the power of a 
 great king, even to holding as stately a court as 
 perhaps any in Europe. 
 
 To be sure, the most discordant elements came, 
 or were brought, together at the court functions. 
 Sometimes, too, the one who should have been the 
 inspiring centre of all this brilliant life showed by 
 
64 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 his harshness of word or deed that he was after all 
 not the noble born, but the domineering soldier. 
 Yet he possessed statecraft in a high degree and 
 well understood how to win to his support this 
 Duke or that Duchess of the old nobility who had 
 learned in the hard school of exile and poverty to 
 bow gracefully to the inevitable. Then too not a 
 few of Napoleon's generals, most of them men of 
 the people like himself, had found their wives 
 from among the high-bred daughters of the old 
 regime. Finally, and most all, the never-failing 
 popularity of Josephine was to be thanked for the 
 large measure of success that attended the recep- 
 tions of the new Caesar. 
 
 At last " the pear was ripe," to quote a favorite 
 expression of Napoleon's, and on the i8th of 
 May, 1804, the Senate formally made tender of the 
 throne to Napoleon and he graciously allowed him- 
 self to be announced as First Emperor of the 
 French. This act was later ratified by the popular 
 vote, five millions of Frenchmen thus speaking 
 through the ballot and making the imperial dignity 
 hereditary in Napoleon's family. 
 
 The imperial couple celebrated the occasion by 
 making a journey, or triumphal progress, to the 
 Rhine provinces lately annexed to France. At 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, at the tomb of Charlemagne, a 
 pleasing miracle was wrought under direction of 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 65 
 
 the clergy in honor of Josephine. In the treasury 
 of the Cathedral there was a gold casket full of the 
 most precious relics ; but it had never been opened 
 and no key had ever been found for its lock. As a 
 great and special favor this casket was laid in the 
 hand of Josephine. Presto! a miracle ! At the gentle 
 touch of Napoleon's lady the casket sprang open, 
 revealing to the sight the most precious jewels 
 and among them the seal-ring of Charlemagne. 
 
 But now I must hasten on to tell you in a few 
 words of the most glorious event of the coronation. 
 The finishing touch to the splendor of the new- 
 made Emperor was given by no less august an 
 hand than that of the Pope. Pius VII., in his joy 
 at the re-establishment of the Roman Church in 
 France by Napoleon's command, saw fit to over- 
 look the former despoiling of the Papal domains 
 and consented to make the journey to Paris to 
 formally crown his new-found friend. 
 
 On hearing of the Pope's approach, Napoleon 
 hastened to Fontainbleau to meet him. At the 
 sight of the Emperor the Pope alighted from his 
 carriage, while Napoleon dismounted from his 
 horse and hastened to embrace his spiritual father. 
 The delicate question of precedence was gracefully 
 disposed of by each of the dignitaries entering the 
 carriage at the same time from opposite sides. 
 
 But now for the coronation itself, and first of all, 
 
66 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 what were the costumes ? His Holiness, it is to be 
 supposed, wore his best, but of his ecclesiastical 
 millinery I do not have the faintest recollection. 
 For the great event Napoleon laid aside his usual 
 plain uniform for a costume befitting the last of the 
 Caesars. His very stockings were of silk, em- 
 broidered with gold crowns ; his shoes were of 
 white velvet, worked with gold ; his knee-breeches 
 were of white velvet, worked with gold and with 
 diamond buttons and buckles ; the vest was of 
 white velvet with diamond buttons, and the coat 
 of crimson velvet with fastenings of white and 
 sparkling with gold ; the mantle was of the same 
 material and color and hung over his left shoulder, 
 being fastened on the breast with diamond clasps. 
 He wore sleeves and collar of the most costly lace, 
 and a cap of black velvet adorned with plumes and 
 topped with a coronet of diamonds. His imperial 
 robes he donned in the vestry of the Cathedral. 
 
 Josephine wore a most beautiful robe of silver 
 brocade adorned with gold bees and fringe of gold ; 
 her shoulders were bare and on her arms she wore 
 armlets of gold set with diamonds. A gold girdle 
 set with thirty-nine diamond rosettes, held her 
 dress. Her wealth of hair was encircled by a mag- 
 nificent diadem. Like Napoleon, she wore in the 
 Cathedral an imj^erial robe, fastened on the shoul- 
 ders with gold buckles and diamond clasps. It was 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 6T 
 
 arranged that Napoleon's brothers should carry the 
 train of his mantle and his sisters that of Joseph- 
 ine's. The proud and jealous sisters of the em- 
 peror rebelled loudly against doing Josephine this 
 honor, but were coerced by the unbending will of 
 Napoleon. 
 
 Before leaving for the ceremony the party gath- 
 ered in the palace for mutual admiration. To all 
 the outpourings of congratulation Napoleon had 
 only one word, "Joseph," he said, "could our 
 father see us now." 
 
 You have read of the ceremony itself. First, 
 Napoleon took from the altar the crown of Charle- 
 magne, and with steady hand put it on his head. 
 Then Josephine left her throne and moved toward 
 the altar, followed by her whole suite. Napoleon 
 thereupon took the small, closed crown, sur- 
 mounted by a cross, put it first on his own head, 
 and then, with unusual gentleness and grace, placed 
 it on the head of Josephine. 
 
 The Pope now, with his retinue of prelates, came 
 and stood before the royal pair and blessed them in 
 Latin with these words: "God establish you on 
 this throne, and Christ make you reign with Him 
 in His everlasting kingdom." He then kissed 
 Napoleon on the cheek and, turning to the audi- 
 ence, said in a strong voice, " Vivat imperator in 
 ceternumy 
 
68 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS. 
 
 Notre Dame now re-echoed to the shout of the 
 joyous thousands and to the music of bands. A 
 little later the Pope intoned the Te Deum, which 
 was then rendered by select choirs and orchestras. 
 After this Napoleon took the oath and a herald an- 
 nounced the fact of the coronation. Volleys of 
 artillery now thundered out the news to Paris and 
 its environs, while a gigantic balloon, finished off 
 with a huge gilt crown, rose into the air and sped 
 away to tell France and perchance Europe that a 
 new star of empire had appeared in the skies. The 
 balloon was seen by myriads, yet no one could tell 
 what had been its fate. Napoleon in particular 
 was concerned to know this, and finally after some 
 weeks, he received an answer. The balloon had 
 fallen in Rome, upon the grave of Nero. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 A MIGHTY PERSONALITY. 
 
 XiyHERE in the Temple of Fame sliall Napo- 
 leon's portrait be placed ? 
 
 Which is the true Napoleon, or which is the true 
 likeness, that of the demi-god or that of the great 
 adventurer ? 
 
 Shall he be judged by things outward, by his 
 deeds and the great changes in the lives of mill- 
 ions, that in the providence of God followed these, 
 or by things inward, by the motions of his spirit as 
 far as these can be clearly known ? 
 
 We are accustomed to think and speak of the 
 certainty of facts, and yet the man who played the 
 great game of life so skillfully for the most part 
 tells us how unreliable are events, all depending at 
 times upon one incident, hanging, as it were, by 
 one hair. 
 
 What then are the elements of greatness, and 
 what those of weakness as found in the man him- 
 self, even in the soul, which is the true man? 
 These elements are most closely and strangely 
 blended, like the threads in some great tapestry, 
 the light seemingly growing out of the dark and 
 the reverse. 
 
TO UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 As I have said, part at least of Napoleon's great- 
 ness can be found in his genius for hard work. 
 The ability to work hard and the keen judgment 
 that guided him in bestowing his labor where it 
 would count for the most — these were prime fac- 
 tors in the greatness to which this man attained. 
 
 " I am always working," he says ; " I think 
 much. If I appear always ready to meet every 
 emergency, to confront every problem, it is because 
 before undertaking any enterprise I have long con- 
 sidered it, and have thus foreseen what could pos- 
 sibly occur. It is no genius which suddenly, 
 secretly reveals to me what I have to say or do in 
 some circumstances unforeseen by others ; it is my 
 own meditation and reflection. I am always 
 working — when dining, when at the theatre ; I 
 wake at night in order to work." 
 
 The powers of endurance and of application that 
 Napoleon possessed are simply beyond belief. In 
 this respect he was not a vivacious Frenchman, 
 nor yet the passionate Italian ; he was the old 
 Roman, the man of iron, lacking at once the finer 
 organization and the weakness of this later genera- 
 tion. 
 
 Napoleon was the indispensible man of his age. 
 Though enjoying good educational advantages in 
 the military school of Brienne and in the greater 
 school of Life, he showed such originality in his 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 71 
 
 movements, especially in war, that he must be con- 
 ceded to be a self-made man. Great as was his 
 genius, it was fairly slow in maturing, and it 
 remains an open question as to whether or not it 
 began to fail some years before his early death- 
 Certain it is that during the years of his earliest 
 manhood he gave much time to idle dreams, while 
 the scope of his plans for a career was limited by 
 the boundaries of the Island of Corsica. When, 
 however, his genius came, it came apparently like 
 Minerva, full-grown ; so that even now, being 
 dead, he rules France and much of Europe 
 besides, through the institutions that he founded. 
 
 He had " To Destiny " engraved in the ring with 
 which he wedded Josephine, and he tried to per- 
 suade others and himself at times that he was the 
 Man of Destiny. This then was the role that he 
 attempted to carry through before the audience of 
 the world. But even Homer sometimes nods, and 
 even Napoleon sometimes forgot his part and 
 showed himself the cool calculator. It was from 
 Italy that he wrote: "Great events depend upon 
 but a single hair. The adroit man profits by every- 
 thing, neglects nothing which can increase his 
 chances ; the less adroit, by sometimes disregarding 
 a single chance, fails in everything." 
 
 The man who considers himself above giving his 
 precious time to details, had no example set him 
 
72 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 by Napoleon, for no point in the equipment of his 
 soldiers or in the civil administration was too small 
 to attract and hold his attention. 
 
 "Fortune," he once said," is a woman; the 
 more she does for me, the more I shall exact from 
 her." But he also said : " Determination is the 
 highest wisdom," and his greatness was found 
 most of all in will-power. 
 
 Intensity of application, strength of intellect, 
 force of will — these may be named as the 
 chief factors in Napoleon's greatness ; what was 
 there to counter-balance these and drag him 
 down ? 
 
 To begin with, there was a lack of moral prin- 
 ciple and especially of the fundamental virtue of 
 truthfulness. Many of his official letters, and, in 
 particular, his war bulletins both to the army and 
 to the nation, were as complete a tissue of false- 
 hood as a keen and unscrupulous mind could 
 conceive and elaborate. Humility was utterly 
 lacking in Napoleon's matured nature, for he not 
 only considered himself as the full equivalent of a 
 host of fifty thousand soldiers on the field of battle, 
 but also assumed the place of arbiter of the desti- 
 nies of the nations of the earth. The wisdom 
 found in the apostolic admonition, " Humble your- 
 selves therefore under the mighty hand of God," 
 was to him a thing unknown, and accordingly he 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. It 
 
 fell under the judgment. *' Every one that exalt- 
 eth himself shall be abased." 
 
 Most of all Ivove, at least in its purity and unsel- 
 fishness, was foreign to his spirit. He could love 
 his own flesh and blood and richly provide for 
 them, but this was only instinct. He could love 
 Josephine most ardently, but passion was the very 
 essence of this love, and it could not stand before 
 the claims of selfishness. 
 
 He certainly did not have the reverent love for 
 God which is the beginning of wisdom, and he did 
 not know what it meant to love his brother man, 
 or he could not have thrust millions of these his 
 fellows into death either by violence or by the slow 
 agony of disease or starvation that he might follow 
 his ambition to its limit. 
 
 To what extent was Napoleon influenced by 
 others ? Very little, I take it, by any one except 
 Josephine ; but considerably by her, at least at 
 times. 
 
 And what was the personality and what the 
 influence of Josephine ? 
 
 This woman who did so much at times to soften 
 the flinty nature of Napoleon was not generally 
 considered beautiful ; yet she possessed a grace and 
 charm all her own that made her loved as univer- 
 sally as her husband was feared. In her move- 
 ments she combined rare grace with a dignity that 
 
74 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 readily passed into majesty of bearing. Her fea- 
 tures were not of classic regularity, but they 
 became truly beautiful when lit up by the glow of 
 thought or feeling. Her eyes were dark blue, 
 shaded by beautiful brows, and her hair was light- 
 brown, long and soft, giving her face a peculiarly 
 gentle expression. Her voice was sweet and most 
 pleasing in its intonations, and I have known busy 
 men to stop in their work, when they heard 
 Josephine's voice in an adjoining room, that they 
 might enjoy its charm. 
 
 A kind heart and an intelligent, living interest 
 in those about her made Josephine most deservedly 
 loved by both the great and the lowly. She had 
 herself been forced to drink of the cup of Sorrow, 
 and could feel for those whom the troubles of the 
 times had bereaved or deprived of home and living. 
 Tact and judgment were hers in the highest degree 
 and, even above these, the truly royal gift of 
 Charity that could suffer long the attacks of enven- 
 omed Jealousy and still be kind. 
 
 Josephine was not an angel who had strayed to 
 this earth, for she had her failings, the chief of 
 which was extravagance, although even here 
 Bonaparte urged her at times to make a great dis- 
 play, while at other times reproving her for her 
 lavish expenditure. Take her in all respects, and 
 she would be found a woman of noble spirit. 
 
A ROMANCE OP HISTORY. 75 
 
 capable of holding by her charm of gracioiisness 
 all whom Napoleon had forced to his side by the 
 power of the sword. 
 
 Partly at Napoleon's express desire and partly in 
 obedience to the promptings of her own kindly 
 nature, Josephine made it her constant aim to 
 attract people of all ranks to herself, and many and 
 influential were the friends she won and held. 
 Among the nobility of Milan in the days of the 
 First Italian Campaign, and then at the little court 
 of Montebello and finally in the great assemblies of 
 the Tuilleries, she moved a queen by instinct, 
 drawing alike the blunt soldier, the polished court- 
 ier and the reserved scholar as willing captives in 
 her train. 
 
 Not only did Josephine win and hold many as 
 friends for her austere husband, she likewise 
 defended him from many a hidden enemy. When 
 Bonaparte was about to embark for the Egyptian 
 expedition his last words to her were : "Jose- 
 phine, my enemies are neither in Asia nor in 
 Africa, but they are all in France. I leave you 
 behind me in their midst, for you to watch them, 
 and to unravel their schemes. Think of this, and 
 be my strong and prudent wife." 
 
 Something at least of the loving, jealous care 
 with which she watched over his interests during 
 the weary months of his absence I have told you. 
 
76 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 and also of the keen intuition by which she divined 
 the danger that menaced him after the triumph of 
 Marengo. She was certainly his guardian angel, 
 and he did at once a great wrong and an act of 
 great folly when, in later years, he sent her away. 
 
 The record of her loving care for Napoleon's 
 welfare would not be complete, did I not at least 
 mention her earnest efforts at holding her self-cen- 
 tered husband back from rushing on to his fate. 
 
 With her rare good judgment Josephine saw that 
 Napoleon's ambition must have some reasonable 
 limit, or that the government of France must be 
 revolutionized. From any such attempt as this, 
 she endeavored with all her influence and tact to 
 hold her husband back, lest he rush on to ruin. 
 Then, too, by birth and conviction, Josephine was 
 a Royalist, and it was perhaps the dearest wish of 
 her heart to see the old order restored and the king 
 come again to his own. The Royalists were con- 
 vinced of her unselfishness, and sought time and 
 again through her mediation to turn Napoleon 
 from his course. One such attempt had in it so 
 much ingenuity that I must give you an outline 
 of its workings. First of all it was no mere mes- 
 sage or proposition that was sent, to be thrown into 
 the waste basket or pigeon-holed. The delicate 
 matter was entrusted to the energy and tact of a 
 messenger, and this messenger was no less a per- 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 77 
 
 sonality than a beautiful and accomplished 
 Duchess, one Madam de Guiche. After winning 
 Josephine's heart, the Duchess was invited to Mal- 
 maison, and she and her hostess together laid their 
 trap for the crafty Napoleon. In the conversation 
 it came out that the Duchess had recently seen the 
 royal family in their exile and had asked the heir- 
 apparent what would be done for the First Consul, 
 were he to restore the Bourbons. The prince 
 answered : 
 
 " First of all he would be created Connetable^ 
 with all the privileges attached to that rank, if that 
 were agreeable to him. But that would not be 
 enough ; we would erect to him on the Place de 
 Carrousel a tall and costly column, and on it we 
 would raise the statue of Bonaparte crowning the 
 Bourbons." 
 
 Napoleon seemed interested in this gracious 
 offer, but grimly intimated that the stately column 
 would have to be built over the remains of the 
 First Consul. The Duchess was a very beautiful 
 and charming woman, but nevertheless she got 
 orders that same evening to leave Paris at daybreak. 
 
 The quality of Napoleon's love for Josephine can 
 best be judged from extracts of the letters he wrote 
 her during the Italian Campaign and which years 
 later were published by Queen Hortense in her 
 mother's vindication. 
 
78 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 In one of April 3, 1796, he writes : " My own 
 Josephine, away from you there is no joy ; away 
 from you the world is a wilderness in which I feel 
 alone, and have no one in whom I can confide. 
 You have taken from me more than my soul ; you 
 are the only thought of my life. When I feel 
 weary with the burden of affairs, when I dread 
 some inauspicious result, when men oppose me, 
 when I am ready to curse life itself, I place my 
 hand upon my heart, your image beats there ; I 
 gaze on it and love is for me absolute bliss, and 
 everything smiles except when I am away from 
 my beloved. 
 
 " By what art have you been able to enchain all 
 my powers, and to concentrate in yourself all my 
 mental existence ? It is an enchantment, my dear 
 friend, which is to end only with my life. To live 
 for Josephine, such is the history of my life." 
 
 In a letter written several months later from 
 Tortona he says : "Be careful, my dearly-beloved 
 one, to tell me in your letter that you are convinced 
 that I love you above all that can be conceived ; 
 that never has it come to me to think of other 
 women ; that they are all in my eyes without 
 grace, beauty or wit ; that you, you entirely, you 
 as I see you, as you are, can please me and fetter 
 all the powers of my soul ; that you have grasped 
 it in all its immeasureableness ; that my heart has 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 79 
 
 no folds closed from your eyes, no thoughts which 
 belong not to you ; that my energies, arms, mind, 
 everything in me is subject to you ; that my spirit 
 lives in your body ; that the day when you will be 
 inconstant, or when you will cease to live, will be 
 the day of my death, and that nature and earth are 
 beautiful to my eyes only because you live in 
 them." 
 
 Many similar expressions of undying devotion 
 to Josephine might be gathered from these letters 
 which were written almost every day, even in the 
 midst of official dispatches and plans of battle ; but 
 there is no need. Enough has been cited to show, 
 if words mean anything, that Napoleon's first mar- 
 riage was not one of convenience, but a true love 
 match. 
 
 And in what particulars did this devoted lover 
 conform to his beloved's wishes? This much at 
 least can be said for him, that for years he de- 
 fended her against the jealous calumnies of his sis- 
 ters ; that at the time of the Pope's visit to Paris 
 her desire for a religious marriage was granted ; 
 and that he arranged that the succession to the 
 throne should pass to her daughter's son. 
 
 That there were serious flaws in his love cannot 
 be denied. When he was in Egypt and Josephine 
 was at home, mindful only of him and his inter- 
 ests, he showed himself notoriously unfaithful to 
 
80 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 her, and in later years the occasions became the 
 more numerous. Finally, as the world knows, In- 
 terest was allowed to prevail over the sense of 
 Rio-ht and over the dictates of his heart as well, 
 and the long- contemplated step of Divorce was 
 taken. 
 
 I need not dwell on the anguish of spirit that 
 this unjust repudiation caused the faithful wife, for 
 the consideration is a sad one, especially to one 
 who would gladly think well of his old commander. 
 Napoleon certainly felt the separation very deeply, 
 and it is possible that he even persuaded himself 
 that he too was a martyr to the cause of France, 
 for strange indeed are the reasonings of the human 
 spirit when the lode-stone of Interest draws. When 
 it came to the trying moment of informing Jose- 
 phine of his determination. Napoleon thus ex- 
 pressed himself : " The nation has done so much 
 for me, that I owe it the sacrifice of my dearest 
 inclinations. The peace of France demands that I 
 choose a new companion. Since, for many months, 
 the empress has lived in the torments of uncer- 
 tainty, and everything is now ready for a new mar- 
 riage, we must therefore come to a final explana- 
 tion." 
 
 To Napoleon's credit it must be said that in the 
 painful scenes of the formal separation in the most 
 liberal provision for Josephine's future he showed 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 81 
 
 great consideration and at times deep feeling. In 
 short lie showed the spirit of a true husband in 
 everything except in the matter of the divorce 
 itself ; but there he sinned against God and man. 
 
 That Napoleon's fortune began to wane imme- 
 diately after his divorce, I do not believe ; for I do 
 not think that the books of heaven are balanced so 
 promptly. Certain it is, however, that this deed 
 of wrong brought him no true or lasting happiness. 
 When misfortune came his young wife of the royal 
 lineage promptly forsook him, and the intelligent 
 and amiable little son in whom he had come to 
 take great pride was soon snatched away by the 
 icy hand of Death. In those lonely hours of retro- 
 spect, of which the exile at St. Helena aflforded so 
 many. Napoleon came to see his wrong, for shortly 
 before his death he admitted : " I ought not to 
 have allowed myself to be separated from Jose- 
 phine ; no, I ought not to have been divorced from 
 her; that was my misfortune." 
 
 And what, you may ask, bound me to Napoleon 
 for twenty years and more ? 
 
 First of all he held me in loyal services by his 
 promises concerning Poland. As late as 1806 
 Poland, though feeble from her wounds, was still 
 alive as a nation and eager for deliverance. A 
 deputation of Polish nobles had visited Napoleon 
 at Berlin and besought his intervention on behalf 
 
 6 
 
82 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 of their country. They were received with great 
 honor and given the assurance that France had 
 never recognized tlie partition of their country ; 
 also that it was his personal interest to restore their 
 independence and to reconstruct their kingdom. 
 On the strength of these assurances Napoleon 
 made triumphal entry into Posen as the Liberator 
 of Poland, and gained 60,000 devoted Polish sol- 
 diers for his army. 
 
 Poland's patriot chief, Kosciusco, never trusted 
 Napoleon, but Prince Poniatowski did, and cast in 
 his lot with the Man of Destiny. The confidence 
 of the brave Poles in Napoleon was misplaced, for 
 he did nothing for their liberation from the Rus- 
 sian tyranny, and seemingly cared nothing for 
 them at the time when the power was his. This 
 neglect came back upon his head when the nations 
 of Europe were mustering for his overthrow. A 
 restored Poland could then have stood up in East- 
 ern Europe as a mighty, living wall for his defense. 
 
 I was drawn and held to Napoleon's service fur- 
 ther by the magnetism of his genius, and only 
 those who have been drawn into the orbit of a 
 Titan, who could overthrow the oldest dynasties 
 and change the map of Europe by the might of his 
 will, know the power of such an attraction. 
 While disapproving of many of his acts, I could 
 not forget his uniform kindness to me, or repress 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 83 
 
 the growth of the feeliug of loyalty to the man 
 whose fortunes I had followed through so many 
 perils. 
 
 Time and again he offered me higher rank than 
 that of Colonel ; but I always declined, being 
 unwilling to part from my faithful Polish regi- 
 ment, and having no ambition for the proffered 
 honors. After his return from Elba he insisted on 
 my acceptance of the title. Count de Bellevieu ; 
 and, had he been victorious at Waterloo, a fine 
 estate would have been added to the title. 
 
 To me Napoleon was always kind, and it is a 
 labor of love to testify to the magnitude of his 
 genius, though, as a conscientious man, I must 'tell 
 the whole story, setting down the evil with the 
 good. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF WAR. 
 
 T^HE Springs of the activities of mankind are 
 two — Selfishness and Love. The first of these 
 we share with the brute creation in its struggle for 
 existence ; this is of the earth, and binds us to the 
 earth. The second is from heaven, and, if exer- 
 cised, brings us into relation with those spirits of 
 light who are ever going forth from the throne of 
 God on errands of loving helpfulness to the chil- 
 dren of men. 
 
 From which hidden spring in the heart of man 
 comes the desire or purpose of War? There is 
 some Scripture bearing on this point, and also the 
 greater part of that long, sombre record of the 
 deeds of men which we call History. Ambition, 
 which is Aggressiveness, and Selfishness, which is 
 Covetousness on the part of some leader or of a 
 whole people, are not these the causes of War ? 
 Sometimes those beginning the struggle are the 
 innocent ones, striking for self-defense or for life 
 itself. 
 
 What of the method of War, or what is War in 
 operation ? This is best described in terms that 
 have become proverbial: it is "Fire and the 
 
 84 
 
A ROMA IV CE OF HISTORY. 85 
 
 Sword." There is another saying that has had 
 great popularity in time of War, viz. : " Better be 
 the hammer than the anvil." However, I can 
 show, I think, from my own experience that, great 
 as is the suflfering of the anvil, the hammer fares 
 about as badly. 
 
 You know, I take it, who each of these parties 
 are — those who strike the blows, the soldier class 
 and those who suffer, the non-combatants whose 
 lands and homes are desolated by the storm of War. 
 And what is the experience of the hammer ? Not 
 all who go to War are officers, seeking fame and, 
 perchance, fortune ; but the majority are common 
 soldiers to whom War brings little of profit and 
 much of hardship. Untold multitudes are taken 
 from the pursuits of peace and prosperity ; yes, are 
 torn from home and loved ones to sufier all the 
 agony that hunger, disease and wounds can inflict. 
 In a single one of the several hundred battles of 
 Napoleon 80,000 men, killed and wounded, have 
 fallen under the fiery hail of iron, or been cut down 
 in brutish rage by their fellow-men. 
 
 Let me give you here but one of my experiences 
 in the hard game of War. It was on the field of 
 Austerlitz that I received the severest wound of the 
 scores that I had to endure during my long service^ 
 I was engaged in storming a redoubt and, carried 
 away by the impetuosity of my charge, I became 
 
86 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 separated from my men and suddenly found myself 
 attacked by seven Russian cavalrymen. Defending 
 myself as best I could in such unequal conflict, I 
 succeeded in killing or disabling two of them, but 
 received a terrible sabre cut across the face from 
 another. The steel chain of my helmet parried the 
 blow and saved my life. Still I was blinded and 
 weakened to such an extent by the force of the 
 blow that I realized in an instant that my only 
 safety lay in flight. My horse was speedy, and I 
 urged him on to his utmost effort. Partly blinded 
 as I was by the blood from my wound, and intent 
 only on evading my pursuers, I rode heedlessly 
 upon a narrow ravine through which ran a small 
 stream, frozen over. By one grand leap my faith- 
 ful horse cleared the stream, while my enemies, 
 checking their animals somewhat, plunged into the 
 stream and were held by the breaking ice. I 
 always attributed my escape to my blinded condi- 
 tion, for, could I have seen the ravine, I doubtless 
 would have checked my steed and fallen into the 
 hands of my foes. 
 
 Avoiding the forces of the enemy by a sort of 
 instinct, I now rode for hours, having in my bewil- 
 derment lost the direction of our own army. 
 Finally night came on and I saw a light in the 
 distance. On near approach I could make out that 
 this came from a mill. I managed to arouse the 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 87 
 
 miller, who, coming to liis door, was horrified at 
 the spectacle that met his eyes, for I was literally 
 covered with blood. By writing I made known to 
 him my condition and needs, for my wound had 
 rendered me temporarily speechless. The miller 
 then invited me in, washed the blood from my face 
 and clothing, brought the edges of the wound 
 together and held them in place by means of plas- 
 ters and bandages, and in short took the best care 
 of me. Here I remained some five or six weeks, 
 and then followed the route of the army and in due 
 time overtook it. 
 
 When I rode into camp I was at once recognized 
 and shout after shout rang out in my welcome, for, 
 though I say it myself, I had uncounted friends 
 among men and officers, and they had given me up 
 as dead, or at least as a prisoner. 
 
 I^ack of time does not allow me to tell again that 
 awful story of the retreat from Moscow. Let it 
 suffice when I tell you that for thirty-seven days 
 my only food was putrid horse flesh. The retreat 
 from Leipsic has not been made much of by his- 
 torians, but it was nearly as bad as the Russian 
 experience, every second man of the survivors of 
 Leipsic falling either before the deadly touch of 
 the hunger-typhus or at the hands of a foe that 
 harassed almost every mile of the journey to the 
 Rhine. 
 
8g UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 What, you ask, is the philosophy of one honest 
 man, a kind husband and father perhaps, undergo- 
 ing hardship and even bitter suffering that he may 
 gain the opportunity to kill some other man who 
 may have loved ones anxiously awaiting his 
 return ? I do not attempt to answer this question, 
 as I never had it satisfactorily answered to me, but 
 shall leave it to the better understanding and con- 
 science of some later generation. 
 
 Nevertheless war must have its purpose in this 
 present evil world, or the Almighty would not have 
 allowed it so large a place in the life of the human 
 race. One good thing I can recount that was made 
 possible through war, and this was the destruction 
 of the headquarters of the Inquisition at Madrid. 
 
 Being at Madrid in the year 1809, my attention 
 was directed to the Inquisition in the neighbor- 
 hood of that city. Napoleon had issued orders for 
 the suppression of this institution wherever the 
 arms of France should prevail. I reminded Mar- 
 shal Soult, then Governor of Madrid, of this decree, 
 and he directed me to proceed to the destruction of 
 this far-famed establishment. Besides my own 
 regiment, the 9th of the Polish Lancers, he gave 
 me two others, the 1 1 ith of the Line, and the 117th, 
 which was commanded by Colonel de Lile, who is 
 now, like myself, a minister of the Gospel. 
 
 With these troops I proceeded to the Inquisition, 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 89 
 
 which was five miles from the city. It was sur- 
 rounded by a wall of great strength and defended 
 by about four hundred soldiers. When we arrived 
 at the walls, I addressed one of the sentinels, and 
 summoned the holy fathers to surrender to the 
 imperial army and open the gates of the Inquisi- 
 tion. The sentinel, who was standing on the wall, 
 appeared to enter into conversation for a few min- 
 utes with someone within, at the close of which he 
 raised his musket and shot one of my men. This 
 was the signal for attack, and I ordered my troops 
 to fire on those who appeared on the wall. 
 
 It was soon obvious that it was an unequal war- 
 fare, for our troops were in the open plain and 
 exposed to a destructive fire. We had no cannon, 
 nor could we scale the walls, and the gates success- 
 fully resisted all attempts at forcing them. I saw 
 that it was necessary to change the mode of attack, 
 and directed that some trees be cut down and 
 trimmed that they could be used as battering 
 rams. 
 
 Presently the walls began to tremble under the 
 well-directed and persevering application of the 
 ram, and soon a breach was made through which 
 our troops rushed into the buildings of the Inqui- 
 sition. 
 
 Here we met with an incident which nothing 
 but Jesuitical effrontery could invent. The In- 
 
90 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 quisitor-General, followed by the fathers in their 
 priestly robes, came out of their rooms as we were 
 makino^ our way into the interior. With solemn 
 faces and with their hands crossed upon their 
 breasts, as though they had been deaf to all the 
 noise of the attack and defense, and had just learned 
 what was going on, they addressed themselves in 
 language of rebuke to their own soldiers, saying : 
 * ' Why do you fight our friends, the French ?' ' 
 
 Their intention apparently was to make us think 
 that this defense was wholly unauthorized by 
 them, hoping that they would thus have the better 
 opportunity to escape. Their trick was too shal- 
 low. I caused them to be placed under guard and 
 all the soldiers of the Inquisition to be secured as 
 prisoners. 
 
 We then proceeded to a careful examination of 
 the building, searching room after room. We 
 found it beautiful in the extreme ; everything ap- 
 peared quiet and in excellent order — much better 
 order indeed than is common for the Devil to keep. 
 We found altars, crucifixes and wax candles in 
 abundance. The proportions of the architecture 
 were perfect ; the ceilings and floors were highly 
 polished ; there was everything to please the eye 
 and gratify a cultivated taste. The floor of the 
 principal hall was paved with slabs of fine marble, 
 and at the end of this hall was an altar with several 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 91 
 
 candles burning. The priests appeared so humble 
 and submissive, and everything appeared so quiet 
 and orderly that my suspicions were almost lulled 
 asleep, and I began to suspect that a great many 
 falsehoods had been told about the cruelties prac- 
 tised in these establishments. We could discover 
 nothing of those horrid instruments of torture, of 
 which we had been told, or of those secret cells and 
 dungeons in which human beings were said to be 
 buried alive. We searched in vain. The holy 
 fathers assured us that they had been belied, that 
 we had seen all. I was prepared to believe them 
 and was on the point of retiring with my men, 
 leaving the building for the present in the hands 
 of its former occupants. 
 
 But Colonel de Lile was not so ready to give up 
 the search. We proceeded to search the principal 
 hall most carefully, to discover, if possible, some 
 trap-door or other entrance to regions below. Some 
 of the soldiers tried to thrust the points of their 
 bayonets or swords between the slabs of the mar- 
 ble, but all without success. I was on the point of 
 giving up, when Colonel de Lile suggested that 
 water be brought and poured through the crevices. 
 Presently an opening was discovered. " Ah," said 
 one ; " what have we here ; we shall soon discover 
 now." 
 
 All hands were now at work for discovery, and a 
 
92 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 soldier with tlie butt of his musket struck a spring, 
 when the marble slab flew back. Then the faces 
 of the inquisitors grew pale, and, as Belshazzar, 
 when the hand-writing appeared on the wall, so 
 did these men of Belial shake and quake in every 
 joint, bone and sinew. We saw a stair-case lead- 
 ing into the cavity below. I at once walked to the 
 altar and took one of the candles burning upon 
 it, that I might explore what was before us. As 
 I was doing this I was arrested by one of the bald- 
 pated priests who laid his hand gently on my arm 
 and with a very holy look said: " My son, these 
 are holy candles ; you must not touch them with 
 your profane and bloody hand." " Well, well," I 
 said, " I want something that is holy ; I want them 
 for a holy purpose ; I want to see if they will shed 
 light on iniquity." 
 
 I took the candle and proceeded down the stair- 
 case, when we entered a large room called the Hall 
 of Judgment. In the centre of it was a large block, 
 and a chain fastened to it. On this they had been 
 accustomed to place the accused, chained to his 
 seat. On one side of the room was an elevated 
 seat, called the throne of judgment. This the 
 Inquisitor-General occupied, and on either side 
 were seats less elevated for the holy fathers when 
 engaged in the solemn business of the Holy Inqui- 
 sition. From this room we proceeded to the right. 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 03 
 
 and obtained access to small cells extending the 
 entire length of the building ; and here what a 
 sight met our eyes ! How has the benevolent 
 religion of Jesus been abused and slandered by its 
 professed friends ! 
 
 These cells were places of solitary confinement, 
 where the wretched objects of inquisitorial hate 
 were confined year after year, till death released 
 them from their sufferings. Their bodies were 
 suffered to remain until they were entirely decayed, 
 and the rooms had become fit for others to occupy. 
 To prevent this practice becoming offensive to 
 those occupying the Inquisition, there were flues 
 extending to the open air sufficiently capacious to 
 carry off the odor from these decaying bodies. In 
 these cells we found the remains of some who had 
 paid the debt of nature ; some of them had been 
 dead apparently but a short time ; of others nothing 
 remained but their bones, still chained to the floor 
 of their dungeon. In others we found the living 
 sufferers of every age and of both sexes, from the 
 young man and maiden to those of three-score and 
 ten years, all as naked as when they were born into 
 the world. Our soldiers immediately applied them- 
 selves to releasing these captives of their chains, 
 stripped themselves in part of their own clothing to 
 cover those wretched beings, and were exceedingly 
 anxious to bring them up to th'e light of day. But, 
 
94 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 aware of the danger, I insisted on their wants being 
 supplied, and that they should be brought gradu- 
 ally to the light, as they could bear it. 
 
 When we had explored these cells, and opened 
 the prison doors of those who yet survived, we pro- 
 ceeded to explore another room to the left. Here 
 we found instruments of torture of every kind 
 which the ingenuity of man or devil could invent. 
 The first was a machine by which the victim was 
 held, while every joint in his hand, arms and body 
 was drawn out. The second was a box in which 
 the head of the victim was confined by a screw. 
 Over the box was a vessel from which one drop of 
 water fell every second in the same place on the 
 head, which put the sufferer into the most excruci- 
 ating agony until death. The third was an infernal 
 machine, laid horizontally, to which the victim 
 was bound ; the machine was then placed between 
 two beams in which were scores of knives so fixed 
 that by turning a crank the flesh was torn from the 
 limbs in small pieces. The fourth surpassed the 
 others in fiendish ingenuity. Its exterior was a 
 beautiful woman or figure, attractively dressed and 
 with arms extended. Around her feet a semi-circle 
 was drawn. The victim who passed over this fatal 
 line touched a spring which caused the diabolical 
 engine to open its arms, and a thousand knives 
 gut him into as many pieces in the deadly 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 95 
 
 embrace. This fiendish invention was called the 
 Virgin. 
 
 The sight of these engines of torture kindled the 
 spirit of the soldiers to fury, and they could no 
 longer be restrained. They declared that every 
 inquisitor, soldier and monk of the Inquisition 
 deserved the torture and should have it. We did 
 not attempt to restrain them any longer, and they 
 at once commenced the work of torture with the 
 holy fathers. The Inquisitor- General was brought 
 before the Virgin and ordered to kiss her. He 
 begged to be excused. "No," said the soldiers 
 " you have made others kiss her and now you must 
 do so, too " ; and pushed him over the fatal line. 
 The beautiful image immediately caught him in 
 its arms and he was cut into innumerable pieces. 
 I remained until I saw four different kinds of 
 torture applied and then retired from the awful 
 scene, which did not end while one individual 
 remained of the guilty inmates of this ante-cham- 
 ber of hell. 
 
 As soon as the poor sufferers from the cells of 
 the Inquisition could with safety be brought out to 
 the light of day, the news of the rescue meanwhile 
 having been spread far and near, all who had been 
 robbed of friends by the holy office came to see if 
 their loved ones might be among those snatched 
 from the living tomb, 
 
96 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 Oh, what a meeting was there ! About one hun- 
 dred who had been buried alive for years were 
 now restored to life and friends. 
 
 Many a one found here a son and there a daugh- 
 ter, here a sister and there a brother ; and some, 
 alas ! found no one at all. The scene was such a 
 one that no tongue could describe. When this 
 work of recognition was over, to complete the 
 business in which I was engaged, I went to Madrid 
 and obtained a great quantity of gunpowder, which 
 I placed underneath the edifice and in its vaults. 
 Then, as we applied the slow-match, there was a 
 joyful sight for thousands of admiring eyes. Oh, 
 it would have done your heart good to see it ; the 
 massive walls and turrets of that proud edifice 
 were lifted into the air, and the Inquisition of 
 Madrid was no more ! 
 
 The soldier class, who serve, perforce, as the 
 hammer in War, suffer much ; what must be the 
 experience of those who take the place of the 
 anvil ? Here, too, there is a terrible harvest of 
 Death, for more die through War than those who 
 fall on the field of battle, or die of their wounds, or 
 by disease. In every war there are the untold 
 thousands of innocent and helpless ones who per- 
 ish, not in the excitement of battle, but by the 
 slow agony of starvation and exposure to the 
 severity of the elements. Burned homes and rav- 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 97 
 
 aged lands ; the means of livelihood swept away, 
 with Famine and Pestilence ever hovering just 
 overhead — these are only some of the conditions 
 that War brings to those who are as the anvil 
 beneath the blows of its dread hammer. 
 
 In the seething cauldron of War the lawless 
 elements of Society often rise to the top, and alas 
 for those who come in contact with these forces of 
 destruction ! Their lot it is to suffer all that out- 
 lawry and brute violence can inflict upon them, 
 and to endure the wretchedness of feeling that 
 there is no redress. 
 
 During the first years of Napoleon's leadership 
 there was not a little patriotism in the Army ; but 
 this died out in time, and the ruling passion of 
 almost all, officers and men, came to be selfishness, 
 seeking honors and wealth, or, in the case of the 
 majority, simply looking out for oneself. 
 
 War, with its long train of horrors, is certainly 
 one of the greatest offenses found in the life of 
 man. Offenses, we read, must needs come, but 
 woe to that man by whom the offense cometh ! 
 Here a question arises, Can a Christian be a soldier, 
 or can a Christian become a soldier and remain a 
 Christian ? War, I would say, is poor employment 
 for any rational being, and most of all for a Chris- 
 tian. Nevertheless, because of our sins. War is 
 allowed. On this question I endorse the confession 
 7 
 
98 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 of the Church which says : "It is right for Chris- 
 tians to award just punishments, to engage in just 
 wars and to serve as soldiers." 
 
 The Christian, then, must first be sure that it is 
 a just war upon which he is entering ; then that he 
 is on the side of justice. To conduct oneself as a 
 Christian in war means, according to my belief, to 
 strike the enemy, while an enemy, as hard and as 
 often as need be to break his power ; but then also 
 to remember that he is a fellow man, and to treat 
 him as such when the strife is over. 
 
 When War ceases from oflf the earth, then all 
 may know that the King is at hand, and that this 
 age has run its course. May He hasten the coming 
 of that day ! 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE WANING PLANET. 
 
 A QUESTION much in dispute among his- 
 torians is this: Just where was the turning 
 point in Napoleon's fortunes? Was it in the 
 Spanish War? Was it in the divorce of the faith- 
 ful Josephine ? Or was it not until Moscow burst 
 into flames ? 
 
 There is another view of the situation. Napo- 
 leon's star began to wane when the work the 
 Almighty had permitted him to do was finished 
 and the time had come for him to be thrown aside 
 like the worn-out tool that he was. So it was with 
 the Pharaoh of the Exodus, with Nebuchadnezzar 
 and many another heathen king, and so it was with 
 Napoleon, Emperor of the French. 
 
 Nevertheless each of these known factors had its 
 place in the providential ordering, and it will be of 
 interest to trace their workings. 
 
 The divorce of Josephine I shall pass by with 
 the mere mention. It was a wrong in itself and 
 also a great mistake for Napoleon. While her lov- 
 ing devotion to him and his interests continued 
 until the day of her death, still, from the nature of 
 the case, she could no longer be to him the ever- 
 
 99 
 
100 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 watchful counselor and confidant. Who can say 
 whether some of the fatal mistakes of his later 
 career might not have been avoided had the pru- 
 dent Josephine been by his side to point out the 
 wisdom that lies in choosing the path of modera- 
 tion. 
 
 The new alliance brought Napoleon no higher 
 standing among the powers of Europe, as it was 
 by its very conditions a matter of compulsion. 
 Then, too, the fondly cherished heir it brought was 
 soon snatched away by the hand of disease, while 
 the royal bride herself gladly took occasion to flee 
 from her autocratic husband. 
 
 The Spanish campaign was one of Napoleon's 
 greatest mistakes, whether considered as a question 
 of diplomacy or as one of war. The spirit that he 
 here found arrayed against him was not Bourbon 
 stubbornness or dynastic pride of any kind, but 
 the mighty spirit of nationality or patriotism on 
 the part of the whole Spanish people, roused to 
 fury at the thought of having a king forced upon 
 them by an alien hand. Such a people, engaged 
 in the most honorable war of their whole history, 
 and entrenched frequently in mountain fastnesses, 
 laughed at the young French recruits who made 
 up so large a part of the armies sent against them. 
 In place of either the fame or the fortune that the 
 French armies of invasion had learned to expect, 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 101 
 
 they were now treated to hardship and hard blows, 
 and these they received in overflowing measure. 
 
 Of course there were times when the tide flowed 
 the other way, bringing victory to the French 
 arms, for some of Napoleon's ablest generals, as 
 Junot, Murat, Soult, Ney and Massena, and not a 
 few of his veteran regiments were thrown into the 
 struggle in Spain. When Napoleon took the field 
 in person. Victory rested upon his banners, as it 
 generally did at such times. Then too for some 
 unexplained reason, the rest of us, from the Mar- 
 shals of the Empire down, could fight under his 
 eye as we could not under the command of any 
 other. 
 
 I well remember one neat little piece of work 
 that it fell to my lot to put through by way of 
 clearing the road for Napoleon. 
 
 The strongly-fortified pass of Somo-sierra, in the 
 Guadarama mountain range, seemed to block our 
 advance. Before the mists of early morning had 
 lifted I swept the Spaniards from their battery 
 before they had time to give us more than one 
 round from the guns. My Polish I^ancers cleared 
 that pass before breakfast, and four days later 
 Madrid fell. 
 
 However, such easy victories were not the rule, 
 but the marked exception. Campaigning in the 
 mountains of Spain was as a general thing hard 
 
102 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 and bootless labor, for what we gained one season 
 was usually lost the next. Here, too, the English 
 gave us a hard wrestle for our fame, as they 
 varied their usual program of sending subsidies in 
 money to the enemies of France by coming them- 
 selves in strong force and with their best generals. 
 Sir John Moore and Sir Charles Napier fell in their 
 victory at Corunna, but then came Wellesley, later 
 Duke of Wellington, who understood both how to 
 wear out his enemies' strength by a skillful use of 
 Fabian policy and also how to strike hard blows 
 when he saw that the auspicious hour had come. 
 Now it was their victory and now it was ours, but 
 the final result was our exhaustion and withdrawal, 
 which meant for Napoleon a rude awakening from 
 his dream of universal empire. 
 
 Then there was the Russian campaign, and who 
 does not know its story and moral ? Napoleon 
 had frequently met the armies of Russia in battle, 
 and had for the most part come off victor in the 
 encounter, but this time he proposed to follow the 
 Bear of the North to his lair. The impending 
 struggle was indeed to be a most notable one, a 
 true Battle of the Giants. On the one side, under 
 the banners of Napoleon, were arrayed the resources 
 of nearly all western Europe and the highest mili- 
 tary skill of centuries ; on the other, as ally to the 
 Russian, was the brute strength and unlimited 
 
A ROMANCE_ OF HISTORY. 10- 
 
 power of endurance of a mighty, half-civilized 
 people, fighting for land and liberty, Nature, too, 
 was Russia's ally. Could even the greatest mili- 
 tary genius annihilate distance, or by its imperious 
 volition transport half a million soldiers, with their 
 artillery and baggage, over the long miles of cheer- 
 less steppes on the wings of thought? Could 
 Napoleon's 1,200 cannon beat down the ice of the 
 North or prevail against the arrows of the frost ? 
 So the modern Alexander seemed to think as he 
 proudly arrayed his Grand Army to humble the 
 dynasty of the Romanoffs, as he already had laid 
 low the houses of the Bourbon, the Hohenzollern 
 and the Hapsburg. 
 
 It was truly a Grand Army that Napoleon led 
 against the forces of the North, vastly superior in 
 intelligence and bravery, and hence in real effect- 
 iveness, to the far-famed army of Xerxes. 
 Humanly speaking, no forces then in existence 
 could have stood before this host of disciplined 
 warriors, had their leader been allowed to choose 
 his own time and place for the conflict. But the 
 times and seasons of our lives are not always 
 in our hands, and even Napoleon was to learn that 
 Providence is not invariably on the side having the 
 heaviest guns. 
 
 After several months in Dresden, devoted to the 
 careful preparation of the warlike host and to the 
 
104 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 pomp and festivity that befitted the court of a 
 world-conqueror, Napoleon gave the word of com- 
 mand and the march on Russia began. On the 
 24th of June the Nieman was crossed and the 
 grand army was on Russian soil. But, summer as 
 it was, the elements gave the conqueror a hint of 
 what they could do, and drenching rains and cold 
 driving winds swept down upon us from the 
 North, chilling man and beast in many cases to 
 their death. 
 
 Then the wily Russians, while at first fearing to 
 meet us in battle, devastated the country before us 
 so completely that already by the end of the third 
 week of our march we were suffering for the want 
 of food. On the i6th of August they ventured 
 to make a stand against us in the strongly fortified 
 town of Smolensko. About 12,000 men in killed 
 and wounded was the price we paid for this vic- 
 tory. On the 7th of September at Borodino the 
 Russians made a last, desperate effort to save their 
 sacred city from falling into our hands. From 
 dawn till dark on that awful day a quarter of a 
 million men strove for one another's blood under 
 the sulphurous pall of a thousand cannon hurling 
 fire and death into the human mass. The enemy 
 left 40,000 men on the field and we about as many. 
 We claimed the victory, but it was only a fruitless 
 one, owing to Napoleon's refusal to allow Ney to 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. l05 
 
 use the Old Guard to follow up the retreating 
 enemy. Ney realized that without this last blow 
 the victory would be incomplete and fruitless, and 
 in his hot anger said that Napoleon would do well 
 to give his attention to discharging the role of 
 Emperor and to leave war to soldiers. Napoleon 
 readily forgave this rash utterance, especially as its 
 implication was not true, for, till the very night of 
 Waterloo, Napoleon was the born commander, as 
 skilful and untiring as mortal man could be. Still 
 he made a grave mistake here, and it was made in 
 the fear that disaster might befall his cherished 
 Guard. Was the iron nerve of the Man of Destiny 
 beginning to soften ? 
 
 You know the old story of the burning of Mos- 
 cow and of our forced retreat, with Cold and Hun- 
 ger and the Cossacks cutting down their thousands 
 through those weeks that seemed ages. Napoleon 
 staid with us for a considerable time, until, I sup- 
 pose, the full realization of the utter ruin of the 
 army had burnt itself into his proud spirit ; then 
 he hastened back to civilization to retrieve his 
 injured fortunes. 
 
 Only one barrier stood between the shattered 
 remnants of the Grand Army and destruction, and 
 this was the spirit of indomitable courage that ani- 
 mated that skilful soldier. Marshal Ney. By the 
 commanding power of his personality some few 
 
106 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 thousand veterans were kept together, and thus 
 enabled to beat back any systematic attack of the 
 enemy. I was at his side as an aide during 
 those terrible weeks and can testify that he most 
 richly deserved the name that Napoleon gave him. 
 "The Bravest of the Brave." Had the Russians 
 possessed a general of half Ney's ability, few indeed 
 would have been the French soldiers who would 
 not have left their bones on those frozen plains. 
 
 The crowning horror of all that campaign of 
 horrors was at the crossing of the Beresina. 
 The Russians held the only bridge, thus forcing 
 us to build for ourselves amid the floating ice 
 and in the face of their attack. Then, as our 
 remnant of an army began to cross, they fell 
 upon us like demons, finally bringing artillery into 
 position and raking the bridge. Our poor fellows 
 fell here by the thousands, and the sick and 
 wounded had to be adandoned entirely to the rage 
 of the elements and to the tender mercies of the 
 enemy. It is said that when the ice gorge in the 
 Beresina broke up in the spring the bodies of 
 12,000 French soldiers were seen on the banks. 
 Of the host of 600,000 who entered the domains of 
 the Czar only a pitiful 50,000 survived, and among 
 these must be reckoned a strong rear guard left at 
 Vilna. 
 
 As I have already remarked Napoleon's war 
 
 J 
 
A ROMANCE OP HISTORY. lOT 
 
 bulletins had a reputation all their own, though 
 not on account of their strict veracity. Returning 
 to civilization after witnessing the annihilation of 
 the Grand Army, he nevertheless made official 
 report to France that he had accomplished his 
 object by the destruction of the enemy's capital 
 and was once more returning to his people in 
 victory. There were no railroads or lines of 
 telegraph, as you know, in those days, so that it 
 was some time before the whole, crushing truth 
 became know throughout France. By the time the 
 sweeping extent of the disaster was understood by 
 the French people they had come to understand 
 something else as well, and that was that, unless 
 they were willing to lose the prestige that Napo- 
 leon had given them and take a subordinate place 
 among the nations, they must follow him to the 
 bitter end in stripping their land of her resources 
 and of every available man in preparation for the 
 death-grapple with banded Europe. The schools 
 were now robbed of their stripling youth, the fields 
 of their toilers and the hospitals of their war-worn 
 veterans, that another Grand Army might be 
 enrolled with which to defy Europe in arms. 
 
 Napoleon willed it, and so France made the 
 sacrifice. Another half million men and boys 
 were put in the field, and soon the veterans scat- 
 tered among them inspired the recruits with the 
 
108 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS. 
 
 spirit of military ardor and devotion to their 
 Emperor that for years had made the armies of 
 France ahnost invincible. 
 
 On the 2nd of May, 1813, the terrible game of 
 War began again with the great battle of lyuetzen, 
 where Sweden's hero-king, Gnstavus Adolphus, 
 had fallen nearly two centuries before in the hour 
 of victory. Alexander of Russia and Frederick 
 William III. of Prussia here took the field in 
 person against Napoleon, and the slaughter into 
 which they sent their devoted soldiers was fearful. 
 Napoleon was the victor here, and less than three 
 weeks later he hurled a force of 125,000 upon the 
 army of the Allies at Bautzen and was again 
 victorious. After a two month's armistice, fight- 
 ing was renewed and a hard-won victory was 
 gained by Napoleon at Dresden. 
 
 To tell both sides of a story, I must admit here 
 that, while Napoleon was gaining these victories, 
 several of his marshals were getting the worst of 
 the argument on other fields. At Gross-beeren 
 General Oudinot was defeated ; at Katsbach 
 General Blucher gained the victory over Marshal 
 Macdonald, taking 18,000 French prisoners and 
 100 guns. My favorite Ney was also on the 
 unfortunate list, meeting with one of the few 
 defeats of his life at the hands of General Berna- 
 dotte, our former companion in arms, but foremost 
 now among our enemies. 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 109 
 
 Finally the opposing forces massed themselves 
 for a grand struggle that should decide once for 
 all the question of the mastery. A battle followed 
 before Leipsic that I consider one of the greatest 
 in all history, both in itself and in its conse- 
 quences. 
 
 Much has been made by historians of the Battle 
 of Waterloo as signalizing the fall of Napoleon. 
 Waterloo was a notable battle, and it forms a fitting 
 and dramatic close to the career of Napoleon ; but 
 the Battle of Leipsic was the greater conflict of the 
 two and it should be made more of in History, for 
 it was here that Napoleon's power was shattered. 
 It is true that after Leipsic Napoleon was still 
 Emperor and still the one military genius who 
 had no peer the world over ; but it is also true 
 that from his defeat at Leipsic he was a broken 
 man, and his best efforts were the struggles of 
 despair in the face of inevitable ruin. 
 
 On the 1 6th of October the Titanic struggle 
 began on the rolling plain east of Leipsic in clear 
 view of the city. Our 130,000 men were almost 
 surrounded by the 300,000 of the Allies. The 
 battle, it was realized by all, was to be one of 
 extermination, and from the very beginning the 
 fighting was with desperation. The Allies began 
 the struggle by attacking six times in close succes- 
 sion our generals, Victor and Lauriston, only to be 
 
110 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 driven back each time with heavy loss. Then 
 about noon we began a bombardment of their cen- 
 tre, concentrating the fire of 150 guns upon this 
 point. At 3 p. M. our cavalry under Murat, 
 Latour-Maubourg and Kellerman charged and 
 broke their centre. At 4 o'clock, however, the 
 tide turned, and our cavalry were hurled back 
 before the charge of the Austro-Russian reserve 
 and the Cossack Guard. At the same hour the 
 Austrian Meerveldt dashed out from Connewitz, 
 but only to his destruction. General Bertrand suc- 
 cessfully resisted superior numbers and drove them 
 back to Plage witz. 
 
 So night fell with the advantage on our side, 
 Blucher having made the only permanent advance 
 for the Allies. In view of the advantage being on 
 his side, Napoleon saw fit the next day to oflfer 
 terms of peace. These were not accepted, but 
 there was at least a day of truce. Napoleon cer- 
 tainly intended to withdraw westward from Leip- 
 sic, yet no advantage was taken of this breathing 
 spell to build bridges over the small but deep 
 rivers cutting that route. Had he forgotten, or 
 did his mighty genius flag at that critical moment ? 
 
 Napoleon's terms were refused, so at 7 o'clock 
 on the morning of the i8th the battle was renewed, 
 the left wing under Ney facing north near Gohlis. 
 Napoleon occupied a hillock at Thornberg with 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. Ill 
 
 the Old Guard as a reserve. Before long Ney was 
 forced to withdraw before Bernadotte and Ben- 
 ningsen, so as to avoid being surrounded. For the 
 most part, however, there was but little manoeuver- 
 ing for position ; only the most savage fighting. 
 At the centre, under Napoleon's own eye, the car- 
 nage was such that words cannot describe ; Arma- 
 Geddon had been realized on earth. So it was at 
 Probstheida under General Victor. Here the Rus- 
 sians and Prussians made ten bayonet charges, each 
 time meeting with fiercest repulse. The air at 
 times was thick with human limbs, torn off by the 
 cannon's blast ; the soil was flesh. So it was at 
 Stoetteritz and elsewhere. Two thousand cannon 
 were thundering at once ; but, as night fell, many 
 of these and most of the muskets had become too 
 hot for use, and the frenzied, de-humanized soldiers 
 fought on in the hand to hand struggle to kill. 
 Many not in the vortex of the fight fell asleep on 
 their feet from utter exhaustion. Napoleon him- 
 self was for half an hour in a state that can only be 
 described as one of stupor. 
 
 All day long our wagon trains had been retreat- 
 ing westward, and now, as the moon arose, the 
 retreat began in earnest over the one bridge (a 
 stone one) which spanned the Elster. For the time 
 Napoleon had ceased to be the animating spirit of 
 his army. His genius ; yes, his intelligence, was 
 
112 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS. 
 
 strangely obscured for hours, and until midday he 
 wandered aimlessly about the streets of lyeipsic, 
 not recognized for the most part by his own sol- 
 diers ; finally he fell into the line of retreat. 
 
 At 2 p. M. a terrible blunder was committed. 
 The stone bridge was blown up, and there was no 
 other. At that most critical moment the Austrian 
 army stormed the city and our rear-guard came 
 rushing in. My regiment, or what was left of it, 
 belonged here, and, as we galloped into the city 
 and through its streets, the ruin of our army con- 
 fronted us on every hand. Reynier's and Lauris- 
 ton's forces numbering 20,000 men had been cap- 
 tured ; thousands more lay in death or in the agony 
 of their wounds on the plain, and an untold num- 
 ber, like my compatriot, Prince Poniatowski, were 
 drowned in those small, deep rivers of which 
 Napoleon had taken no account. 
 
 As my regiment reached the Hinter-Thor, we 
 saw our opportunity to do a piece of work that 
 gave us much pleasure. The remnant of one of our 
 infantry regiments had been surrounded here by 
 an overwhelming force of Austrians, and, though 
 selling their lives dearly, were simply being mas- 
 sacred. Here was work to our liking, and, as I 
 gave the word of command, my men answered with 
 a ringing cheer. In another moment the Austrians 
 who escaped the shock of our first onset were flee- 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 113 
 
 ing up the narrow alleys and into houses to save 
 themselves from the feet of our horses and from the 
 blow of the sabre and the thrust of the lance. 
 
 At the blown-up bridge the scene was one that 
 beggars description. Here friend and foe were in- 
 volved in one hopeless melee, and thousands were 
 being forced into the river, trodden under foot or 
 slaughtered where they stood. Nothing was to be 
 done here by our handful to beat back the foe or 
 rescue our friends, and so we made our way under 
 guidance of an infantry private to a ford where 
 they, as well as ourselves, could cross. 
 
 Soon we fell in with our retreating troops scat- 
 tered along the Erfurt road toward Lindenau, and 
 then began another sad chapter in the sad story 
 of war. Disheartened by defeat, weakened by hun- 
 ger, with thousands dying of the typhus, and 
 harassed by the Cossacks almost as on the retreat 
 from Russia, we pressed wearily on toward the 
 Rhine and safety. However, we had not forgotten 
 the art of War even in the worst of our hardships, 
 as those found to their cost who attempted to block 
 our way. Napoleon was himself again, as was 
 clearly shown by his successful conduct of the 
 retreat and by the skill and desperation with which 
 he fought battle after battle before Paris. 
 
 But all this struggle of desperation was in vain. 
 The first stroke of the hour of Napoleon's destiny 
 
114 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 was sounded, and his abdication of the throne and 
 retirement to Elba soon followed. 
 
 I do not care to linger on the circumstances of 
 that journey of the humbled conqueror ; but it is 
 a matter of History that, as he passed through the 
 southern provinces of France, where the forces of 
 the opposition had smouldered on during the years 
 of his ascendency, the insults and threats of the 
 populace cowed the lion heart that had never 
 quailed in the fiery hail of battle, and Napoleon 
 stooped to disguise himself that he might avoid 
 the wrath of his enemies. Truly, as his star set 
 for the season in the waves of the Mediterranean, 
 it was in clouds and obscurity. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE CAGED LION; HIS RELEASE AND RECAPTURE. 
 
 V\7 AS it from man or of God, this panic that fell 
 upon so many who had been Napoleon's 
 supporters ? Something in the air, as it were, told 
 men that the Invincible One's day was drawing 
 toward its close ; and so the kings and princes he 
 had put upon their thrones fell away, as soon as 
 the chill of evening came to be felt. The lion who 
 had scattered his foes at the bridge of Lodi, at 
 Austerlitz, Jena and on scores of other hard-fought 
 fields was now left alone, save for the blind devo- 
 tion of a warm-hearted people. 
 
 Yes ; one nation there was besides his own to 
 hold unwaveringly to their promised deliverer — 
 a nation without a government of their own — my 
 own brave Polish people. At Leipsic and after 
 Leipsic, when Napoleon's friends were few and 
 becoming fewer, the Poles alone remained faithful. 
 
 As you know from your reading, desperate 
 indeed were the efforts our Emperor made to 
 retrieve the field of Leipsic The lion was at bay 
 now and striking quick and deadly blows ; but the 
 hour of his undoing had come, and one small 
 Mediterranean island was to be his domain. 
 
 115 
 
116 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS^ 
 
 Napoleon was now in Elba, with an abundance 
 of material growing out of the Past to furnish him 
 with food for reflection ; what was doing in France ? 
 The Bourbons had come back at the call of the 
 victorious Allies, and with them came the residue 
 of the Emigrant Nobility. 
 
 These latter, who had steadfastly refused all these 
 years to adjust themselves to the changed order 
 that had come to pass in their native land, now 
 expected as the least reward for their devotion to 
 the old regime the restoration of their estates and 
 dignities. These estates had been confiscated long 
 years before by the government and assigned to its 
 champions in war, or sold to private parties and 
 perhaps sold again. As well try to bring back the 
 water that flowed in the Seine twenty odd years 
 before, but that had for all these years been 
 mingled with the fluid mass of the Atlantic, as to 
 restore these estates. As for the old feudal digni- 
 ties and privileges they existed in the recollections 
 of the people only as an unpleasant reminder of the 
 days of their bondage. 
 
 Out of the chaos of the Revolution there had 
 arisen a new order that had in it vastly more of the 
 element of Justice than the old ever had, and that 
 belonged to the Present. When the Bourbons and 
 their adherents made the studied and persistent 
 attempt to ignore twenty of the most momentous 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 117 
 
 years in the life of a progressive people, they 
 demanded that this people live day after day what 
 may be called a lie of the Intellect. "No foot- 
 steps backward " is an old and a true saying, and 
 when the Bourbons insisted that the French peo- 
 ple deny its truth in their daily lives, they were 
 guilty of folly that can be fittingly described only 
 as monumental. 
 
 And this Bourbon folly was shown in all the 
 spheres of life, and not merely in the political 
 world, where it might, perhaps, have been 
 expected. In social life, in the Army and even in 
 the Church it was equally evident that the attempt 
 was being systematically made to ignore the Living 
 Present in favor of the Buried Past. To the limit 
 of their ability (which by the way did not reach 
 very far) the Bourbons set aside the laws and prac- 
 tices they found in force. The most important 
 issues, however, as the freedom of the press, per- 
 sonal liberty and the existing titles to property, 
 they dared not touch. In the sphere of Religion 
 the Roman Church was given free scope, and she 
 used her resources of ceremonial to the utmost in 
 elaborate street processions and reconsecrations of 
 churches to impress the people with the thought 
 that the age of Reason had been set aside by the 
 hand of God, to make place for the old, unques- 
 tioning faith and devotion. So it happened that 
 
118 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 many a fickle Frenchman who only a few years 
 before had danced with glee about the altar of 
 Reason, while he hurled terms of ridicule at the 
 Church, could now be seen walking, as became a 
 good Catholic, with measured step and penitential 
 mien to some elaborate ceremonial setting forth 
 the triumph of the Church over her sacreligious 
 foes. 
 
 This kind of thing could not have lasted a great 
 while, for the French are too intelligent a people 
 to be kept for any long time acting a part. How- 
 ever other and more active forces than mere 
 national impatience were at work. We of the 
 Army who had followed Napoleon on so many a 
 march and into so many a fierce battle were soon 
 made to feel that, instead of being the French 
 patriots we had imagined ourselves, we had all 
 this time been traitors to France, and were even 
 now suspects. This suspicion, or repellant treat- 
 ment, of the soldiers of the imperial army was as 
 unwise as it was unjust. We had fought and bled 
 and starved all those years, not only for Napoleon, 
 but, as we believed, just as much for France. We 
 soldiers were men accustomed to prompt and vig- 
 orous action, and we speedily gave our old leader 
 to understand that there were matters pertaining 
 to the Present upon which he might do well to 
 reflect. That winter some of us who had the sense 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 119 
 
 of humor took great pleasure in displaying to an 
 appreciative friend the emblem of a violet with the 
 peculiar statement attached, " Reviendra aux Pri- 
 entemps." 
 
 One circumstance that greatly favored our 
 scheming was the treatment accorded France by 
 the Allies. All the territory and other advantage 
 that France had gained during the long years of 
 war at such fearful cost in the lives of her citizens 
 was stripped from her, and she was left as at the 
 beginning of the Revolution. The pride of 
 France rose at this humiliation, and she began to 
 think with affection of the man under whose 
 leadership she had been the arbiter of the destinies 
 of all Europe. 
 
 It is not to be denied that Marshal Ney took part 
 in this plotting. In view of the fact that he had 
 accepted, or rather retained, high rank in the army 
 under the Bourbons, this conduct would look like 
 treachery, and indeed it was held by many to be 
 such. I do not wholly excuse Ney in this matter ; 
 but this much can be said. He tried to serve the 
 Bourbons with all sincerity and vigor, until he 
 became convinced that their rule was an impossi- 
 bility ; then he began to think of his old com- 
 mander. 
 
 Next to Napoleon, Ney was the leader with 
 whose career mine had been most closely inter- 
 
120 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS. 
 
 woven. In Spain and in Russia I had shared his 
 fortunes; I was with him in this matter, and in the 
 time then a part of the unknown Future, in that 
 supreme moment in the annals of war, the closing 
 scene at Waterloo, I was to be at his side as one of 
 his aides. I was intimately associated with Ney 
 in this matter ; but I shall not put the blame of 
 my act upon him and say : " Ney tempted me 
 and I did plot." I see now, as I did not see then, 
 that Napoleon's return meant only new turmoil 
 and bloodshed. It was not my plotting alone, or 
 perhaps to any marked extent, that brought Napo- 
 leon back from Elba ; but I am ready, as an old 
 man settling up his accounts with life, to plead : 
 Me a culpa. 
 
 So in the course of human events it befell that 
 on a certain day at the end of February, 1815, 
 France was treated to what she dearly loved, viz. : 
 a great surprise. From mouth to mouth it was 
 repeated during the next days. Napoleon has come 
 back to France. Already the quick-witted French- 
 men felt the grip of the master's hand on the helm 
 of state, and, weary as they were of the Bourbon 
 farce, most of them rejoiced at the coming 
 revolution. 
 
 Then it could be clearly seen what power there 
 is in a name. At the 'name of Napoleon the old 
 spell that his personality had so long exerted fell 
 
A ROMANCE OF ///STORK 121 
 
 upon men and robbed them of their reason. His 
 old soldiers in particular, who had been so rudely 
 treated by the Bourbons, felt that now the day of 
 their deliverance was at hand, and every road 
 leading south was dotted with groups of them 
 hurrying to welcome their great chief. On the 
 5 th of March a large force stationed at Grenoble 
 joined him in a body. At Lyons an army under 
 Bourbon command had been placed to check his 
 progress ; but the troops went over to Napoleon. 
 
 Marshal Ney had promised Louis XVIII. to 
 bring Napoleon to Paris in an iron cage ; but, 
 whatever he may have meant by his promise, he 
 did a very different thing and joined the lion's 
 following. By this time Paris had become a very 
 uncomfortable place of residence for the Bourbons, 
 and so they and theirs flitted to Belgium or to 
 England. 
 
 The Hundred Days, as the period from Napo- 
 leon's return until the Day of Waterloo came to 
 be called, was a time of the intensest activity. 
 The giant mind of Europe was working in many 
 directions, as in diplomacy ; but most of all in 
 preparing for the inevitable crash of War. And it 
 was marvellous what a master in the art of War 
 could do, even in a few months and in a land so 
 completely drained of its resources as was France. 
 An army of 360,000 men was raised and equipped 
 
122 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 in this brief time, and Napoleon claimed that, 
 could he have had a few weeks more in which to 
 labor, he would have surrounded France with a 
 wall of brass which no earthly power would have 
 been able to break through. 
 
 But the war-clouds were fast gathering to the 
 north, where that stubborn old fighter. Marshal 
 Bliicher, and the adroit Wellington were about to 
 mass their forces to descend upon France. To the 
 north then Napoleon hurried with an army of 
 124,000, attacking and defeating Blucher at Ligny 
 the day after he crossed the Belgian frontier. On 
 the same day Ney attacked the British at Quatre 
 Bras ; but was repulsed and fell back on the village 
 of Waterloo. Blucher also headed his army for 
 this point, and the situation now resolved itself 
 into this. Marshal Grouchy with 34,000 men 
 must hold Bliicher back from Waterloo, while 
 Napoleon attacked Wellington in that vicinity. 
 In case Grouchy could not hold the Prussian army 
 in check, then he was to hasten to join Napoleon. 
 These plans once determined. Napoleon hastened 
 with an army of 80,000 to meet Wellington who 
 had an equal force. 
 
 The 1 8th day of June was the memorable Day 
 of Waterloo, and it came preceded by a half day 
 and a night of heavy rain which made the ground 
 soft and in places almost impassable for artillery. 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 123 
 
 Accordingly Napoleon delayed the hour of battle 
 until nearly noon, trusting to Grouchy to hold the 
 Prussians back. 
 
 The story of Waterloo is an old one, and it has 
 been often and eloquently told Accordingly I 
 shall not dwell upon its dramatic scenes further 
 than to give a sketch of the battle and to recount 
 my own part in it. The enemy's forces were 
 drawn up on rising ground in the form of a 
 crescent a mile and a half in length, the concave 
 side being turned towards us. We held the next 
 ridge 500 — 800 yards distant. About half way 
 between the armies stood the stone chateau of 
 Hougoumont held by a strong force of British ; 
 also the hamlet of INIont St. Jean and the farm of 
 La Haie Sainte, also strongly garrisoned by the 
 British. 
 
 The events of the battle, told in the fewest 
 words, were these : At half past eleven the first 
 attack was made on Hougoumont ; but the chateau 
 remained in the hands of the British. The Prus- 
 sians under Biilow were then repulsed, and Napo- 
 leon determined to break Wellington's centre. To 
 this end Ney was ordered to carry La Haie Sainte. 
 I was by Ney's side and can testify that the British 
 gave us some of the hottest fighting we ever exper- 
 ienced. We carried their position, but were then 
 checked in our farther advance by the forces under 
 
124 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 Picton and Ponsonby. Until half past three the 
 fighting here was most desperate and without a 
 moment's breathing spell. Then there was a 
 slight pause, our forces giving their strongest 
 efforts to the capture of Hougoumont ; but in 
 vain. Wellington now attempted to re-take La 
 Haie Sainte ; but we hurled him back. Ney then 
 sent to Napoleon for re-inforcements, that he 
 might make a counter charge and break the Brit- 
 ish lines. 
 
 Napoleon had already weakened his reserves and 
 could send us only a small force, not more than 
 enough to enable us to hold our position. Simply 
 to do this, he afterwards claimed, had been his 
 orders, thus putting the responsibility for the 
 defeat at Waterloo on Ney's shoulders. Ney may 
 have been so beside himself with the rage of battle 
 as to disregard the command of his chief ; but on 
 the other hand, as we have already seen, even 
 Napoleon could forget, and he was not above clear- 
 ing himself at the cost of another. 
 
 So it happened that, as soon as re-inforcements 
 reached us, Ney gave the command to charge and 
 on we rushed into the British centre. Had the 
 mass of our attacking force been half again its 
 weight, we should most certainly have swept the 
 British from the field. As it was, the enemy's 
 lines reeled and staggered before the impact of our 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 125 
 
 charge, gave a little space ; but then stood, as if 
 rooted to the ground, and could not be moved one 
 foot farther. 
 
 Nevertheless, while we had not succeeded in our 
 charge, we had not been repulsed ; but by repeated 
 charges and destructive artillery fire held the 
 advance we had gained. In other parts of the 
 field our forces had been in the main successful, 
 so that, as the sun began to near his setting, it 
 looked as though Waterloo were to be added to the 
 mighty array of the victories of Napoleon. 
 
 All now depended upon an unknown quantity 
 or quantities in the form of the two armies linger- 
 ing somewhere just out of sight. Would either 
 of them appear on the field of Waterloo that day 
 to turn the scale ? If so, which force would it be, 
 Grouchy's Frenchmen or Blucher's Prussians? 
 Soon after five, bugles were heard in the distance 
 to our right. Who was it? It was Bliicher, for 
 the banners were those of Prussia. 
 
 For Napoleon it was now the hour of Fate, and 
 he realized that fact most keenly. At once he 
 called his reserve and, most of all, the Old Guard 
 to the rescue. Perhaps you do not know what that 
 Old Guard was, or the part it had played before 
 all Europe. It was the very flower of the French 
 Army and its ranks were kept filled with such 
 only as had seen long service. Its record was on^ 
 
126 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS. 
 
 glorious story of triumph on liard-fought fields, 
 and never had it tasted defeat. 
 
 Was this to be the hour of its brightest glory, or 
 of its crushing ruin ? 
 
 The enemy realized as keenly as ourselves that 
 this was the moment of destiny, and as the Guard 
 moved forward in all the stern magnificence of 
 War, their artillery ceased firing and for the 
 moment there was an awful silence, such as one 
 might imagine would precede the day of doom. 
 Doom it was for Napoleon and his devoted sol- 
 diers. The enemy had ceased firing only that 
 they might the more effectually compass our 
 destruction. At the instant when we were fully 
 exposed their batteries opened upon us with a 
 most deadly fire. Before that hail of death rank 
 after rank went down almost as completely as 
 grain before the reaper's scythe. On we pressed, 
 without an instant of faltering, over the windrows 
 of the dead and dying up to their guns and, 
 striking down the gunners, broke our way through 
 the British lines. Just then was the exact 
 moment of our destruction. From behind a low 
 ridge there sprang up file after file of infantry, 
 firing volley upon volley into our very faces. 
 Volley followed upon volley without pause or ces- 
 sation, until the earth seemed to vomit fire and 
 death into our faces, and we broke and fled as 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 127 
 
 before the overflow of a volcano, thrown back by 
 the very explosion of their guns. 
 
 In the carnage through which we passed Ney 
 had five horses shot under him and now, black- 
 ened and burnt with powder, he fought on foot, 
 and by almost superhuman efforts formed those 
 nearest him into two great squares, that he might 
 check the frenzied rush toward the rear. Won- 
 derful to say, he was on the point of succeeding 
 in this effort, when Bliicher's 30,000 Prussians 
 reached the spot and swept our shattered ranks 
 before them. These Prussians had many an old 
 score to settle, and they struck hard and vengeful 
 blows, following us up in relentless pursuit all that 
 night. Whether or not the cry was raised, "The 
 Old Guard dies, but never surrenders," I cannot 
 say. I can say that thousands did die on that field 
 of carnage, and that other thousands were driven 
 in blind confusion from the field and afterwards 
 captured by the victorious enemy. 
 
 As for Napoleon he would gladly have died in 
 the thick of the battle, but Marshal Soult urged 
 him almost by main force from the field aud hur- 
 ried him off for Paris. En route, he took poison; 
 but his purpose changing or his courage failing, 
 he took an antidote and recovered. Once in Paris, 
 he saw that all was indeed lost, and signed an act 
 of abdication and then fled from the city. His 
 
128 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS. 
 
 last hope was to escape to the United States ; but, 
 frustrated in this plan, nothing remained for him 
 but to choose the one of his enemies to whom he 
 would surrender. He paid the English the com- 
 pliment of selecting them, and sent word to that 
 effect to the commander of a British vessel oflf 
 Rochefort. The Englishman took his famous 
 prisoner to Torbay, whence, as you well know, he 
 was taken to his island prison of St. Helena. 
 Here after nearly six years of captivity the Lion 
 of France died. 
 
 Was Napoleon a great man ? As the world 
 reckons, most assuredly, yes. Was he great and 
 good, a Washington, or even a Lafayette ? 
 
 Alas, no. He lived, not for humanity or even 
 for his country, as he was wont to declare ; but for 
 Self. He died, admired or reviled, as it might be; 
 but, save here and there by a faithful few, unloved 
 and unwept. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 UNDER THE SHADOW. 
 
 pLATO lias told us many interesting things 
 about Justice, but there is one circumstance 
 that has come into prominence since his day 
 This is the fact that the meshes of the great drag- 
 net of Justice are so constructed that they catch 
 the little fish, while letting the big ones get away. 
 Napoleon, the aforetime conqueror of Europe and 
 arbiter of the fate of kings, was given a whole 
 island for his prison and treated as a kingly guest. 
 Marshal Ney, General Rigaud, Colonel Labe- 
 doyere, myself and some few others who had stood 
 loyally by our chief in the time of his exile were 
 seized by the Bourbon authorities on our return 
 from Waterloo, thrown into prison and sentenced 
 to be shot. It is true that after the explosion of 
 the infernal machine in the Place de Carrousel^ 
 Napoleon caused the execution or banishment of 
 scores of his enemies ; yet there was but scant 
 comfort for us in this fact of precedence. How- 
 ever for several of us the ordering of the Bourbon 
 monarch was not to be the ordering of Destiny or, 
 as I prefer to say, of Providence. 
 
 9 129 
 
130 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 How the vengeance of a king was set aside by 
 a mightier hand, is a story worth the telling. 
 
 Except for a few scratches and powder burns, 
 Marshal Ney and myself found ourselves unhurt 
 after all the terrible slaughter through which we 
 passed on the Day of Waterloo. Side by side we 
 were swept from the plateau of Mont St. Jean by 
 the rush of Bliicher's Prussians, defending our- 
 selves as by instinct whenever any of the enemy 
 crowded us too closely. How we escaped from the 
 field or even made our way to Paris, I cannot 
 recall. Utter exhaustion, or depression of spirit 
 rather, had come over both of us, and we made 
 that sad journey almost without exchanging an 
 unnecessary word. 
 
 On our return to Paris we met with a reception 
 that might have given less modest men an exag- 
 gerated notion of their own importance. We were 
 seized, almost on our arrival, by the police, as 
 dangerous to the peace of France, and put in close 
 confinement until our execution. Just here I 
 would pay the police of Paris the compliment of 
 saying that what they do not know of the affairs 
 of their city belongs to the category of such 
 things as have never either happened or been 
 thought about. Afterwards I learned that every 
 trifling act of my insignificant self, in the days 
 when Napoleon was in Elba had been put on 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 131 
 
 record, and that my fate had been decided long 
 before my arrest. 
 
 Before telling my own experience during those 
 awful mouths spent under the shadow of death, 
 it is fitting that I should tell the fate of my 
 superior officer and former commander, Marshal 
 Ney. You doubtless know what the historians 
 say of his execution. It is about this : After 
 every eflfort to secure his pardon had failed, Ney 
 was finally taken from prison to be shot. At the 
 place of execution he was put before a file of 
 soldiers, whom he faced without flinching. Plac- 
 ing his hand on his heart, he cried : " Vive la 
 France f'' and said: " Fellow-soldiers, fire here." 
 The volley was fired, and the "bravest of the 
 brave" lay dead before them. 
 
 This is a very thrilling episode of History, 
 yet there is one criticism that must be passed 
 upon it. It never happened, or at least happened 
 with one important variation. There is only one 
 strictly accurate historian, viz : the Recording 
 Angel ; all the others are fallible. 
 
 But first let me say a few words about Ney's 
 remarkable career, then I will tell you the true 
 story of his execution. 
 
 Marshal Ney was of humble birth, his parents 
 being plain people, his father an Alsatian and his 
 mother Scotch. The father had seen service and 
 
132 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 the son's soldierly gifts were developed at an early 
 age. He had a good elementary education, with 
 some study of Latin and of Law. But the pen of 
 the lawyer, dangerous as it sometimes is, was not 
 to be Ney's weapon. While still a youth he found 
 himself in the army, and his soldierly qualities, 
 joined with modesty, dashing bravery and unusual 
 consideration for his men, soon won him promo- 
 tion. His public career you know. His greatest 
 achievement was, doubtless, his conduct of the 
 retreat from Russia. Napoleon appreciated this 
 so fully that he said at the time that he would 
 rather lose a fund of sundry millions that he 
 had in his treasury vaults in Paris than lose 
 Ney. 
 
 The story of Ney's execution is this. While 
 his pardon could not be secured, it was neverthe- 
 less a fact that he had influential friends who were 
 resolved to take the most desperate chances to save 
 his life. One of these had charge of his execution 
 and halted the squad at a lonely spot on the way to 
 the appointed place of execution. Then Ney was 
 placed against a blank wall and the soldiers fired, 
 directing their aim, however, at a point just above 
 his head. Ney fell, as he had been instructed, and 
 doubtless had a most trying time for the next hour 
 or so playing the part of a dead man. His empty 
 coffin was duly buried, but the supposed occu- 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 183 
 
 pant v/as meanwhile making a swift journey for 
 America. 
 
 After a year or so spent in close retirement and 
 study, in Charleston, I believe, Ney put in his 
 appearance in Rowan County, North Carolina, 
 under the name of Peter Stuart Nay, and opened a 
 private school for boys. As he was kept supplied 
 with funds by friends in France, he took up teach- 
 ing merely as a congenial occupation. The old 
 warrior's career as a pedagogue was on the whole a 
 successful one. I was told that he was known and 
 loved for his kindly disposition, except when pro- 
 voked, and then, as of old, his blazing anger would 
 make the boldest tremble. He is said to have been 
 subject to spells of depression, generally on receipt 
 of letters from abroad. Occasionally at such times 
 he would drink heavily, and would then make 
 admission of his identity. At intervals he received 
 visits from foreigners who evidently were men of 
 standing. It was my privilege to make him one 
 short visit and also to receive one from him at my 
 home in Indiana, when we enjoyed the bitter-sweet 
 experience of living over the Past and its many 
 stirring memories. He died at a good age, not in 
 Paris before the muskets of the soldiers, but 
 quietly in his bed in North Carolina, where his 
 ashes rest to-day. 
 
 General Rigaud also escaped his impending fate, 
 
134 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 I am told, but of his experiences I have no 
 account. 
 
 As for my own lot at this most trying time, I 
 would say that I can never forget the slow agony of 
 those months in prison under the black shadow. 
 It was not that I feared to die, for many was the 
 time, in the vortex of battle, that I expected 
 death and cared not though I had to die, provided 
 only that the victory came to us. In the glorious 
 excitement of battle a brave man thinks or cares 
 but little about death ; but as one sits, week after 
 week, in a prison cell facing the thought of being 
 led out and shot like a rabid dog, death takes on 
 another aspect and becomes indeed the King of 
 Terrors. 
 
 In those long weeks that ran into the months I 
 reviewed alike the present situation and my past 
 life most earnestly. Among men there was none 
 of whom I knew to help me, so with all the fervor 
 of my soul I committed myself to God. The 
 prayers of David, lighted up by the pure light of 
 the Christian's faith, were my especial solace. 
 With David I prayed: "My God, my God, why 
 hast thou forsaken me ? Our fathers trusted in 
 Thee : they trusted, and Thou didst deliver them. 
 They cried unto Thee and were delivered : they 
 trusted in Thee, and were not ashamed. ' ' 
 
 "The cords of death compassed me, and the 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. m 
 
 floods of ungodliness made me afraid. The cords 
 of Sheol were round about me : the snares of death 
 came upon me." 
 
 Many a time in my career in the Army or while 
 at Court I had upheld the Christian faith before 
 scoffers, would my Lord now remember me ? 
 
 My answer came from the mouth of David : "In 
 my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto 
 my God, He heard my voice out of His temple, 
 and my cry before Him came into His ears. For 
 Thou hast girded me with strength unto the 
 battle. Thou hast subdued under me those that 
 rose up against me. He rescueth me from mine 
 enemies. Yea, Thou liftest me up above them 
 that rise up against me : Thou deliverest me from 
 the violent man." 
 
 In the light of such assurances as these and in 
 the comfort of the Christian's faith and hope, I be- 
 came reconciled to whatever might be the orderinsf 
 for me of the great hand of God, The bitterness 
 of death had passed away, and I was quietly await- 
 ing the coming of the 8th of December, which was 
 to be my last day on earth, when the hand of the 
 Lord was revealed. 
 
 My jailer brought me a well-baked and appetiz- 
 ing cake which, he said, the Countess of Blank 
 had paid him to give me. I had not heard this 
 name for years, but I at once remembered it as that 
 
136 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 of one of the truly great ladies of France whom I 
 had helped long since when she was in a situation 
 of great distress. As soon as I was alone I broke 
 open the cake and found within a steel file and, 
 wrapped about it, a scrap of paper with a street 
 address written on it. I enjoyed the cake, but you 
 will believe me when I say that I enjoyed the file 
 even more. That night I tried its quality upon 
 the bars of my window, and the next night, 
 December 7th, which was to be my last one in 
 prison and on earth, I cut the bars and made my 
 escape. 
 
 The circumstances of my escape were not with- 
 out interest, at least for myself. I had made a rope 
 of my bed clothes, and, letting myself down to the 
 end of this, I swung clear of the wall and dropped. 
 A most painful experience resulted. Just beneath 
 me, fixed in timbers and covered with shallow 
 water, were sharp spikes pointing upward, and 
 upon some of these my feet struck. You can 
 imagine the pain, but I had no time to stop to con- 
 sider that. Loosing my feet from the spikes, I 
 slowly picked my way, sliding my feet between the 
 points until I came to the outer wall of the prison. 
 This I scaled, but, as I leaped to the ground, there 
 stood a sentinel with leveled musket. I said to 
 him : " Do your duty ; " but the man was one of 
 my old soldiers, and lowering his weapon and 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. I3t 
 
 facing about, he said : " Pass on, Colonel Lehma- 
 nowsky." 
 
 I very cheerfully obeyed his order and made my 
 way to the address that had been sent me. Here I 
 found a friend who bandaged my feet, and then we 
 returned part of the way, wiping up or covering my 
 bloody tracks. The cold water over the spikes had 
 stayed the flow of blood somewhat, and aided us in 
 our effort at preventing detection. Returning with 
 my friend to the house, I was shown to a room in 
 the cellar which had been constructed for my use, 
 being furnished with an air shaft. In this under- 
 ground retreat I remained most contentedly until 
 my wounds were healed and the excitement caused 
 by my escape had subsided. 
 
 It was not with the good will of the Bourbon 
 regime that I had left my prison quarters, for most 
 diligent search was made for me, and handbills 
 were printed, giving a complete description of my 
 insignificant self, and offering a much larger 
 amount for my arrest than I had ever considered 
 myself worth. 
 
 All this commotion, and especially the circula- 
 tion of those handbills, made the problem of my 
 departure from Paris a somewhat involved one. 
 It is hardly necessary to state that I did not 
 attempt to leave Paris in uniform. A very plain 
 outfit of citizen's clothes satisfied my desires, and 
 
138 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 thus arrayed, and furnished with a forged pass, I 
 presented myself at the gates of the city. But the 
 guards distrusted me and refused me passage, tell- 
 ing me to return a little later when the officer in 
 charge would be present. I did not find it conve- 
 nient to come again, but had a couple of friends 
 lower me over the wall that night at a point where 
 I could be rowed across the Seine. I took this 
 farewell of Paris toward morning, and, with so 
 early a start and with a great ambition to leave 
 Paris behind me, I covered a number of miles that 
 day that you would scarcely believe to be possible, 
 were I to tell you the count. 
 
 Avoiding the larger towns and travelling for the 
 most part in the early morning or toward dusk, I 
 finally reached the neighborhood of Amsterdam. 
 Here I once more tried the virtue of my pass, but 
 it was not honored, and I was glad to beat a hasty 
 retreat from the presence of the officials. In this 
 vicinity, I heard, a general, who was an old acquaint- 
 ance of mine, was reviewing his troops. I made 
 my way to him and asked of him a pass. He 
 refused me with the words : "I have a warrant for 
 your arrest, but make your escape." 
 
 By this time it had become clear to me that the 
 Continent of Europe had become just a little too 
 small for one like myself who had gained the ill- 
 will of the ruling powers. Accordingly, I began 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 139 
 
 to think with much affection of America as the 
 true and only land of the free, and so I made my 
 way to the port and inquired for a vessel bound 
 for America. Fortunately there was one at the 
 dock just on the point of sailing. The Captain 
 was an American, and I loved that man on sight 
 for his strong and open expression. I felt as by 
 instinct that he was a man to be trusted, and I 
 frankly told him the essentials of my story in a 
 few words. He listened with the closest interest, 
 but said that he could not take me as a passenger. 
 He added, however, as I was about to turn away in 
 despair : "Go down into the hold of the ship and 
 put on sailor's clothes and daub some tar on your 
 face, and be on deck with the sailors when we 
 start." These instructions I most gladly followed, 
 working so industriously at cleaning up the deck 
 that I never once straightened up to my full height 
 until we were well under way. When the ship 
 had passed fairly out of the harbor, the Captain 
 told me to wash, put on my own clothes and make 
 myself comfortable. The North Sea in Winter 
 may not be considered by some as an ideal spot ; 
 but, as we passed out upon its troubled waters, 
 making our difficult course toward the English 
 Channel and the broad Atlantic beyond, I thought 
 its sharp winds were laden with the very elixir of 
 life. 
 
140 UNDER TWO CAtTAINS, 
 
 The ship was old and hardly seaworthy and our 
 voyage was a rough and perilous one ; but to one 
 like myself, fleeing from the grasp of Death, every- 
 thing seemed right. I especially enjoyed the Cap- 
 tain's society, for he was as true a man as ever I 
 met, and had, moreover, seen much of lyife and its 
 hardships, having followed the sea from boyhood, 
 getting a taste of War in the recent struggle 
 between the United States and England. Many 
 were the pleasant hours we spent in discussion or in 
 living over the most interesting of our varied 
 experiences ; and one experience we were destined 
 to undergo together. 
 
 Almost the whole voyage had been stormy ; but, 
 as we neared America, we ran into a gale that 
 made our ship quiver and groan as though receiv- 
 ing its death-blow. The seams opened here and 
 there and soon the dismal music of the pumps was 
 added to the howling of the storm. Despite our 
 incessant labor the water gained upon us, and it 
 seemed as if the ship must founder. There was no 
 hope that the ship's boats could live in such a sea, 
 and the Captain's face was the picture of gloom as 
 he told me that he thought we should have to 
 fight our last battle together. I answered that 
 such indeed might be the case, but that a voice 
 within seemed to tell me the opposite, and that 
 with his permission I would make a special effort. 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 141 
 
 Even at that time the English Bible was fairly 
 well known to me, and now, without quitting my 
 place at the pumps, I lifted up my voice and my 
 soul in a prayer made up chiefly of some of its 
 grandest assurances and promises. The Captain 
 and his whole crew were wonderfully encouraged 
 by this prayer, and many of them wept at the 
 sound of the words of Holy Scripture familiar to 
 them in childhood, but in some cases long ago 
 neglected and forgotten. As we toiled on and I 
 continued to use the strong memory that has 
 always been one of my greatest gifts to repeat 
 passage after passage of Scripture comfort, the 
 storm began to abate and presently we found that 
 we were gaining on the water in the hold. Then 
 there was indeed rejoicing and we labored with 
 new strength to rid the ship of water, while one 
 and then another of the sailors assured me that 
 never again would he make a voyage without a 
 Bible in his kit. 
 
 At last the happy day came when we passed the 
 cape of the Delaware and sailed up the bay and the 
 river of that name, gazing with delight on the 
 fields and wooded hills to our left that were just 
 taking on the fresh green of early spring. Phila- 
 delphia was finally reached and our vessel drawn 
 up to her dock. Then, after a hearty farewell to 
 
142 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 the Captain, I left my ark of refuge and stood at 
 long last on the soil of free America. 
 
 What did I do as my first act ? There was only 
 one thing I could rightly do. Stepping aside to a 
 secluded spot on the dock between some barrels 
 and bales, I knelt and poured out my heart in 
 words of thanksgiving to the Lord of Hosts, the 
 Great Shepherd of Israel. 
 
 " O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good ; 
 because His mercy endureth forever. Let them 
 now that fear the Lord say, that His mercy endur- 
 eth forever. The Lord is on my side ; I will not 
 fear: what can man do unto me ? It is better to 
 trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. 
 Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall : but 
 the Lord helped me. The Lord is my strength 
 and song and is become my salvation. The voice 
 of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of 
 the righteous : the right hand of the Lord doeth 
 valiantly. I shall not die, but live and declare the 
 works of the Lord." 
 
 So I prayed, and, as I arose greatly strengthened 
 in spirit, I found an elderly man of dignified bear- 
 ing, dressed in a fashion that I had never before 
 seen, standing beside me. He laid his hand on my 
 arm, saying: "Come, go with me," and I followed, 
 not knowing whether for good or for evil. 
 
PART II. 
 
 • 
 
 IN THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 BEGINNING LIFE ANEW. 
 
 'T'HE old gentleman who bade me go with him 
 when I arose from my prayer proved to be a 
 Quaker merchant, who had been drawn to the spot 
 by the sound of a voice coming from among the 
 piles of merchandise. As I soon found, I was not 
 arrested, as I had supposed, but was being taken to 
 a comfortable home to enjoy the most generous 
 hospitality. And I did enjoy it, I assure you. 
 After the short rations we had on shipboard, and 
 the still scantier fare I had lived on during my 
 forced march from Paris and while in prison, I was 
 prepared to furnish the bountiful table of my host 
 with at least one appreciative guest. 
 
 That evening I told the main points of my life- 
 story to my host and a little circle of his Quaker 
 friends. Having learned of their principle of 
 opposition to all War, I was somewhat surprised to 
 note the deep interest they showed in my account 
 of some experiences under Napoleon. They had 
 
 143 
 
144 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS. 
 
 many questions to ask about the Battle of Water- 
 loo in particular, for, it seemed, some of their Eng- 
 lish relatives who did not belong to their Society 
 had borne a part here. When I told how Welling- 
 ton's squares had held their ground like oaks 
 before the fury of our charge, these men of Peace 
 became very restless, and several went so far as to 
 wish that they might have looked on that sight. 
 
 The next morning my host seemed to have some- 
 thing on his mind that was troubling him. Finally 
 he told me that he cared but little for the vanities 
 of this world, and that plain dress was ever his 
 choice ; then he wound up by suggesting that he 
 advance me the means for the purchase of a new 
 suit of clothes. There was nothing superfluous in 
 this suggestion, for the clothes I was wearing had 
 been chosen for their poor appearance, and had 
 seen hard service on my journey to Amsterdam 
 and on the ocean. Whether or not the coat makes 
 the man, I shall not attempt to decide ; but this 
 much I know, that good clothing makes a marked 
 difierence in the treatment the wearer receives, and 
 also in his own inner consciousness. 
 
 It took but a few days for a man of my constitu- 
 tion and seasoning to become rested from the 
 fatigues of the voyac;c, and then I called my 
 esteemed friend into counsel regarding the question 
 of my future. You will be interested to know 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 145 
 
 what I held my resources or assets to be on landing 
 on American soil and beginning life anew. 
 
 First of all, I might be pardoned for naming my 
 military rank of Colonel of the Ninth Polish Ivan- 
 cers of the Army of France. This title represented 
 twenty-two years of young manhood given, for the 
 most part, to arduous service with the trying 
 experiences of no less than two hundred and four 
 battles, of scores of wounds and of great privation. 
 However, with a large reward offered by the Bour- 
 bon government for my arrest, this asset of mili- 
 tary rank might become, as I saw, a mill-stone to 
 drag me under the waters. 
 
 Next to my army record I might be inclined to 
 name the title, Count de Bellevieu, that Napoleon 
 had bestowed upon me on his return from Elba, or 
 to reckon on the documents he had given me, enti- 
 tling me to receive a fine estate from the French 
 government. As for the title I fully realized that 
 under existing circumstances it came under the 
 sentence of the Preacher: "And this, too, was 
 vanity." 
 
 After discussing the situation with my venerable 
 friend, I decided to drop the latter half of my 
 name, thus changing it to the common German 
 one, lychman, and also to reduce myself to the 
 rank of Major. Thus I trusted to avoid attracting 
 attention, and to free myself from the danger of 
 
 10 
 
146 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 arrest and from the wretchedness of living under a 
 cloud of dread. 
 
 And what, you may ask, became of my claim to 
 the estate in France? I shall anticipate my story 
 some few years and tell you. 
 
 Some years after coming to America I called on 
 Joseph Bonaparte who was then living at Borden- 
 town. New Jersey. Instead of showing me any- 
 thing of the consideration due one whom he had 
 seen hundreds of times in his brother's service, and 
 whom he knew had been a most faithful follower 
 of Napoleon, he treated me from first to last as an 
 imposter or beggar of whom he would gladly be 
 rid. Our interview, I need hardly add, was a 
 stormy one. However, his servant, who followed 
 me to the front door, paid the score. This fellow, 
 a large and most pompous specimen of the flunkey 
 tribe, added some insult of his own as I was leav- 
 ing. I could endure much from the brother of my 
 Emperor ; but nothing at all from a supercilious 
 menial, so I answered his insult with a blow from 
 my open hand that sent him rolling at my feet, and 
 walked away, feeling somewhat relieved. 
 
 In this same connection I may as well tell of a 
 visit I made to France on the accession of Louis 
 Napoleon. The lesson I brought home with me 
 was, " Put not your trust in princes." The one then 
 ruling France found it convenient to forget my 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 14T 
 
 years of faithful service to the founder of his house 
 and to remember only that I bore a proscribed 
 name. Accordingly, I once more had the oppor- 
 tunity of studying the inside appointments of a 
 French prison, where I had abundant leisure to 
 indulge in some choice philosophical reflections on 
 the vanity of all things mundane. The influence 
 of a powerful friend at court finally secured my 
 release, but not until I had become fully convinced 
 that Providence had some worthier calling in 
 reserve for me than the life of a French nobleman. 
 
 But to return to the question of my assets on 
 beginning life as an American citizen. Rank and 
 title, as I have shown, were to me only as so much 
 smoke in the eyes as I stepped into the new life ; 
 but I had some better stock in trade than these. 
 
 I had super-abundant health, being then a vigor- 
 ous young man just turned of forty. Moreover I 
 had, besides my military training, an education of 
 a completeness none too common in America. 
 Then too, in the hard school of War I had gained 
 a certain practical skill that put me on a very 
 different footing from those who pride themselves 
 on a so-called aristocratic helplessness. Had 
 manual labor been the first thing that offered 
 itself to me, I can honestly say that it would have 
 been promptly and cheerfully accepted. Finally I 
 had for my stay in those trying days, wheu I 
 
148 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS. 
 
 found myself a stranger in the land, an nnfaltering 
 trust in the God who led Abraham to a land that 
 he knew not, but that the Great Friend would 
 show him, and who appeared unto Paul and said : 
 Fear not ! 
 
 The question of making a living in the New 
 World answered itself, as it were, and in a way 
 that was as natural as it was unexpected. 
 
 The son of my kind host, who by the way was 
 much more a man of this world than his father, 
 asked me to go with him to a concert. After we 
 had enjoyed the first half of the program, my new- 
 found friend insisted on introducing me to several 
 of the musicians. As we sat chatting during the 
 recess I picked up a guitar and played a little on it. 
 Music, I might say, had been my chief recreation 
 during the hours and days of idleness that come 
 in the life of the soldier, and those New World 
 musicians saw at once that they could learn some- 
 thing of the noble art at my hands, and promptly 
 engaged my services as their instructor. Instruc- 
 tion in modern languages followed naturally upon 
 this first employment, and so it happened that 
 within a month or two the homeless wanderer, 
 fleeing from the wrath of a king, was making a 
 comfortable living and enjoying the pleasures of 
 cultured society in the land of Freedom and of 
 the Future. 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 149 
 
 That year the heat of Summer fell early upon 
 the city homes and streets, and most of my pupils 
 left for the country or to be near the ocean. As I 
 was thus temporarily forsaken and had some little 
 money in hand, I resolved to start out and explore 
 at least a part of the land. It was with all the 
 keen relish of a boy starting out on his first long 
 vacation that I marched forth, knapsack on back 
 and stick in hand, to make a peaceful campaign in 
 rustic America. 
 
 Some of the adjacent places made famous by the 
 deeds of the great-hearted Washington, as Valley 
 Forge and the Brandywine, first engaged my atten- 
 tion. Then I turned my steps northward to the 
 Forks of the Delaware and the beautiful Water 
 Gap. From this point I journeyed westward and 
 southward to the Valley of the Lehigh and the 
 towns on its banks, as AUentown. Thence I struck 
 across the country to Reading and Lancaster. 
 
 To my surprise and delight I found in most 
 sections a New Germany, and heard again the 
 language and saw again, as far as might be in 
 America, the life and customs I had come to know 
 so well in the Old World. Stopping, as I did, with 
 the farmers and working with them in the fields, I 
 could readily imagine myself in some quiet comer 
 of South Germany or in the Rhine Country. 
 Then again I enjoyed to the full an occasional day 
 
150 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 spent in exploring the forests or in fishing or in 
 some other way entering into the primitive life of 
 the New World. Between the labor I rendered in 
 the fields and the instruction I gave the young 
 people at odd hours in the homes I had the satis- 
 faction of knowing that I was working my pass- 
 age and that I was no burden on my hosts, but a 
 welcome guest. Sometimes, when I spent a few 
 weeks with one family, the farmer would insist on 
 my taking some small sum of money for my ser- 
 vices, and, as I took up my journey, it was always 
 with such a supply of edibles in my knapsack as 
 would have overcome my old comrades of the 
 armies of Napoleon with astonishment and envy. 
 
 So my first summer in America slipped most 
 pleasantly away with only one incident of special 
 note. I hardly know how to describe this inci- 
 dent, whether as my first Fourth of July and its 
 Homeric deeds or under the heading of the Army 
 in Berks. 
 
 At the beginning of July I found myself in 
 Berks County, and here it was that I celebrated 
 my first American Fourth of July. Hearing that 
 there was to be a celebration of the day in one of 
 the larger towns, I made my way thither, and had 
 the unexpected pleasure of taking a leading part 
 in the celebration. After some speechifying by a 
 lawyer of the place who was a candidate for Con- 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 151 
 
 gress, the choicest part of the celebration was 
 announced, viz. : a drill and sham battle by a troop 
 of rustic cavalry. 
 
 These were gotten together from the various 
 taverns with much beating of a big drum and 
 drawn up in battle array. The Army in Berks, as 
 I may call it, presented an imposing appearance, 
 if considered by the standard of avordupois, men 
 and horses both being of unusual weight. Their 
 military evolutions, however, would hardly have 
 charmed either Napoleon or Ncy, and, in spite 
 of myself, I was moved to laughter and then to 
 speech. 
 
 Thought is a truly noble faculty, putting man 
 at the head of creation and affording him some of 
 the greatest pleasures of life ; but then Thought 
 must not be held as one with Speech. These two 
 faculties should be kept separate in our minds, and 
 we ought most carefully to observe the ratio that 
 wisdom has decreed should exist between them. 
 
 There was no harm in my cherishing the belief 
 that one experienced soldier could scatter the 
 whole rustic troop ; but when I said in distinct 
 words, though speaking only to myself, " I could 
 whip the whole of them," trouble followed, as it 
 generally does follow hasty speech. 
 
 A by-stander heard my statement and carried it 
 at once to the officer in command. He then sent 
 
152 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS. 
 
 for me and demanded to know whether I meant 
 what I said. I told him that I did, and we then 
 took up the all-important question of the plan of 
 battle. I suggested various approved formations, 
 beginning with the phalanx of the ancient Greeks ; 
 but we finally decided upon the following arrange- 
 ment and terms of battle. The troop was to be 
 drawn up in two parallel lines, leaving space 
 between for me to pass. This idea, I believe, 
 had been gotten from the American Indians, and 
 was called "running the gauntlet." I hinted to 
 the Captain that the place of honor for him would 
 be at the head of one of the lines ; but he said 
 that he considered his place to be somewhat to 
 one side, that he might the better observe the 
 conduct of his soldiers, and that he would give 
 the places at the head of the lines to a blacksmith 
 and a young farmer who enjoyed local reputation 
 as fighters. 
 
 I was provided with a stout club, a ten foot pole 
 and mounted on a good horse, while the troopers 
 were at liberty to use the flat of their swords or 
 clubs as they chose. I now drew off fifty yards or 
 so, set spurs to my horse (a willing brute) and 
 galloped toward my antagonists, brandishing club 
 and pole in either hand and shouting at the top 
 of a strong voice the battle-cry that had sounded 
 above the crash of arms at Waterloo. 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 15^ 
 
 A chain, it has been remarked, is no stronger 
 than its weakest link, and so it fared with the 
 chivalry of Berks on that memorable Fourth. 
 The two warriors at the head of the columns fled 
 from my charge as from Grim Death, and those 
 behind them did the like, jumping their horses 
 out of my way with unlooked-for swiftness as I 
 neared them. 
 
 After this Homeric exploit the field was mine, 
 and I laughed as I had not since I was a boy at 
 my crest-fallen antagonists and their explanations 
 as to how it had happened. However, the tides 
 of enthusiasm and hard drinking now began to 
 set in so uproariously on every side that I was 
 glad to slip out the back door of a tavern and 
 to measure off" a good ten miles of country road 
 before dark. 
 
CHAPTER n. 
 
 IN A NEW ROLE. 
 
 CROM scenes of War the transition is easy to 
 those of Love, and so it befell my battle- 
 scarred self. However it was not to be on the field 
 of glory, or when arrayed in the panoply of War, 
 that I was to be pierced by the arrows of Cupid : 
 but amid other surroundings and under very 
 different conditions. 
 
 When I made my way back to Philadelphia in 
 the autumn I found, not only my former pupils 
 awaiting my return, but a number of new ones. 
 Calling on one of my music pupils on a certain 
 memorable day just before the Christmas holidays, 
 I was introduced to a young lady, a Miss Halter, 
 who wished to take lessons. Not only did this 
 lady show unusual talent, but she likewise showed 
 at all times an amiability of spirit that made her a 
 universal favorite. Time and again it seemed to 
 me that I had seen her face before, but when 
 or where I could not by any effort recall. Her 
 family, I found, were Swiss, though they had emi- 
 grated to America some years before, settling in 
 Philadelphia where the father found a business 
 opening. 
 
 154 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 155 
 
 However I could not have met her in her native 
 land, as I had never been in that beautiful coun- 
 try, except a time or two on the hurried errands 
 of War. Her father and mother I seldom saw, as 
 the one was away at business and the other 
 closely occupied with household affairs. Never- 
 theless the time finally came when I was invited to 
 take supper and spend the evening with the family 
 and a few friends, the occasion being the young 
 lady's birthday. 
 
 The principal dish at supper was a most savory 
 preparation of venison or goat's flesh, which I 
 could remember having eaten only once before 
 and then with a Swiss family at the birthday feast 
 of a beautiful child in a hamlet in the Pass of St. 
 Bernard. I remarked upon this fact, and was 
 astonished and delighted when the young lady of 
 the house answered : 
 
 " The dish is exactly the same, but, if there 
 were a birthday cake on the table, it would carry 
 twice as many candles to-day as did the one in the 
 old village. Where, Major, is the great sword 
 that my little brother tried to swing about his 
 head, and why are you not in that gorgeous uni- 
 form in honor of my birthday !" 
 
 Then it was that I understood, as one awakened 
 out of sleep, the resemblance in the young lady's 
 face that had puzzled me, and then, too, I knew 
 
156 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 why at times I had detected her laughing at me 
 behind my back. The choice meal lay long un- 
 tasted then, as her parents told how they had 
 taken the resolve to leave Europe and its fierce 
 storms of War, and had made the long and weari- 
 some journey to the peaceful haven of America. 
 They listened, too, in round-eyed wonder to the 
 strange tale of War and journeyings that I had to 
 tell, and when, late that night, I sought my lodg- 
 ings it was with the most comforting feeling that 
 a bond of union had been given me between the 
 old life that now seemed almost unreal and the 
 one I was living. 
 
 It is an old story, and yet one of ever-living 
 interest that I have now to tell. The Philadel- 
 phia of that day had streets, not a few, and most 
 of them had some interest of their own, yet one 
 street came to claim place in my thoughts as the 
 only one of real importance. There was a society 
 of no little culture in the city, and to this I had 
 the entree ; yet it came to be that there was but 
 one face that appeared to me in my dreams. 
 
 In short a new thing had come into my philosO' 
 phy, even that mysterious force or current that 
 men call Love. In the language of the poets I was 
 fast in Cupid's meshes. To view my situation 
 from another point of view, I was convinced of the 
 profound truth and beauty of the old Scripture 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTOR V. 157 
 
 that says: "It is not good that the man 
 should be alone." To be perfectly candid, I must 
 admit that it was the poets who received the larger 
 part of my leisure just then. Gentle Spring had 
 come again, and her occult influences lured me on 
 many a balmy afternoon to wander forth to the 
 neighboring woods that I might commune with 
 Nature and with the kindred spirit of the poet. 
 
 Abundant proof of the fact that I was at last in 
 the toils, I found in the unreasonable yet deep- 
 seated dislike I began to entertain toward a young 
 business man who was a frequent caller at the 
 Halter home. This rival in the field was neither 
 brilliant in intellect nor possessed of much educa- 
 tion, and yet I saw that he was one to be reckoned 
 with. Was he not to the manor born, and had he not 
 all the social and political chat of Philadelphia at 
 his tongue's end ? Then, too, had he not inherited 
 a very lucrative business from his father, together 
 with a pretentious home on Arch street, and was 
 he not himself a rising man in that he was a 
 member of the City Council ? Physically con- 
 sidered, he was a small man, not reaching to the 
 height of my shoulder ; but, nevertheless, I began 
 to fear him as I had never feared Russian, Prus- 
 sian, Austrian or Englishman on the field of battle. 
 
 When Napoleon went a-wooing it was said of 
 him that he had only his sword and general's hat 
 
158 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 to offer his beloved. I was in still worse plight, 
 for, as a refugee here in peaceful America, I had 
 neither sword nor rank to offer, and could not as 
 much as come and go under my own name with- 
 out risk to my liberty or even to my life. As I 
 thought on my condition and on the generous 
 intentions with which I had entered upon my 
 career as a French patriot and soldier, the feeling 
 of bitterness swept over me like a wave. But this 
 weakness was not for long, and then with the 
 optimism that befits a man and a Christian I began 
 to plan my campaign. 
 
 I decided (somewhat wisely, I believe) to take 
 neither man nor woman into my confidence, but to 
 hold my council of War strictly with myself One 
 principle of war I had learned from Napoleon, and 
 that is that promptness or aggressiveness is half 
 the battle. "In war," he wrote, "you see your 
 own troubles ; those of the enemy you cannot see. 
 You must show confidence." Accordingly, on 
 recalling this advice, I resolved to act and to act 
 at once, /. ^., within twenty-four hours. I should 
 have preferred another field of action to the one on 
 which I knew my happiness must be put to the 
 question. A man of my stature makes a much bet- 
 ;;er appearance on horseback or even walking 
 than when seated in a low parlor chair ; but your 
 true general takes the field as he finds it and adapts 
 his strategy to its peculiar features. 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 159 
 
 In European society good usage demands that 
 the consent of the parents be secured before the 
 daughter be addressed ; but here I was determined 
 to stand on my rights as an American citizen. So 
 it was that I advanced to the attack at a carefully 
 chosen hour of the afternoon, marching up to the 
 house and asking for Miss Halter. 
 
 Many is the grand lady of court circles with 
 whom I have conversed with unperturbed spirit ; 
 but, when this young lady of the people en- 
 tered the room, such was my perturbation that I 
 fairly stammered as I greeted her. As is often the 
 case in War, I found it expedient to resort to a 
 feint to withdraw attention from my real purpose, 
 and so I began to speak very earnestly about a 
 coming musical festival. By the time this matter 
 had been somewhat fully discussed I had regained 
 my equanimity and was ready to face the real issue. 
 
 The all-decisive moment was brought on by me 
 by stating to Miss Halter that I was in deep trouble. 
 At this statement she showed great sympathy and 
 asked if it were any matter that her father or 
 herself could remedy. I told her that she alone 
 of all people could help me, whereupon she 
 blushed so deeply and seemed so touched that I 
 took courage and spoke my heart. In the confi- 
 dences that followed she made the comforting con- 
 fession that, after seeing and recognizing me on 
 
160 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 the street shortly after my arrival in Philadelphia, 
 the other men of her acquaintance had one and all 
 shrunk into insignificance. She admitted, too, that 
 she had then formed the maidenly resolve to keep 
 me in sight for the future. 
 
 When all was happily settled between us, we 
 sought her parents and I, assuming a confidence I 
 was far from feeling, asked their consent to my 
 suit. Somewhat to my surprise, this was readily 
 granted, and then began the happy days of our 
 engagement and the delightful labor of planning 
 and working for the new home. 
 
 For the information of any who may be aspiring 
 to such honors, I would say here that it was upon 
 becoming engaged that I first learned the full 
 meaning of the word Responsibility. My greatest 
 satisfaction in those days I found in the good stand- 
 ing I had been able to gain in the short time of my 
 residence in America, or, to put the matter differ- 
 ently, in the extent and quality of my circle of 
 acquaintances. The fact, too, that there was a 
 small balance to my credit in one of the banks 
 helped me not a little to peace of mind at this 
 crisis. Hitherto I had been somewhat indiflferent 
 as to the number of my pupils, but I now resolved 
 to pass no one by who desired my instruction and 
 had the wherewithal to pay for it. My day-dream, 
 however, was to get away from city life and its 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 161 
 
 petty vexations for one in my position to the inde- 
 pendent life on the farm. Then, too, a man of my 
 frame and muscle seemed better suited to a life of 
 vigorous exercise than to adapting himself as a 
 teacher of music and the languages to the whims 
 of the fine ladies or light-headed youth of the New- 
 World city. However, until I could gather means 
 to purchase even a small farm near my prospective 
 wife's home, I must be content with the conditions 
 of my lot in the city. 
 
 Philadelphia, toward the end of the second decade 
 of the Nineteenth Century, was not a dull place 
 of residence even for a man who had seen as much 
 of the world as myself. Until comparatively a 
 few years before it had been the capital city of 
 the United States, and as such had sheltered some 
 able men and courtly ladies. There was to be 
 found in the place some really select society and 
 much that was substantial, together with not a 
 little of the dangerous element. This last, it must 
 be admitted, was, for the most part, of my adopted 
 nationality, the French. Political emigrants these 
 were, of the most widely dilBferent classes and 
 creeds. Taken together, they formed an uneasy 
 generation, the most of them being of the red 
 revolutionary and infidel stripe and of a most 
 bitter spirit. I need hardly say that I did not 
 seek the society of these people, but neither did 
 
 n 
 
162 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 I shun them. I had never feared these fire-brands 
 in their own land, and I feared them even less 
 here in free America. Whenever I was thrown 
 together with these malcontents and heard them 
 making their attacks upon either the ordinances 
 of God or the institutions of the Republic, I made 
 it my duty and pleasure to remind them of the 
 pit whence they were digged and to explain to 
 the company something about the days of the 
 Terror and the bands of Marat. The accuracy 
 of my statements was never questioned by a 
 Frenchman, and while hot anger sometimes was 
 kindled, no challenges to the duel ever followed. 
 
 Life, I find, is very much a series of compen- 
 sations, and to offset the unpleasantness of con- 
 troversy with infidel and revolutionist, there was 
 the ever-increasing good will of those who re- 
 spected religion and government. I made enemies 
 here and there, it is true ; but they were such 
 as I never should have chosen for my friends, 
 and for everyone of them I gained at least two 
 friends among the best people. 
 
 There were some men of scientific culture in 
 Philadelphia in those days and some, too, who 
 had made a name for themselves in the service 
 of the State. I had my acquaintances and even 
 friends among these ; but my intimates came to be 
 the German pastors of the city, who were scholars 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 163 
 
 from the European universities, as well as earnest 
 preachers and energetic American pastors. My 
 cherished University days seemed to come back 
 to me, as now and again I spent an evening dis- 
 cussing with these broad-minded men the pro- 
 found truths of Theology and the great lessons 
 of History. Life most certainly is a thing of 
 change, and as I sat in the great congregation 
 that Lord's Day after Lord's Day filled the spa- 
 cious Zion's German Lutheran Church, or walked 
 the quiet streets with my betrothed, perhaps to 
 attend some concert, I would sometimes ask my- 
 self : Is this the same man, who for twenty-two 
 years was driven from end to end of the Con- 
 tinent of Europe by the fierce storms of War? 
 
 That summer and the next I spent in the 
 country ; but with a different purpose from my 
 former one of merely working my way, while I 
 explored a new land. Now I felt that something 
 must be earned during the summer months, while 
 I was seeking a location and learning the science 
 of crops, and cattle, and the other mysteries of 
 farming. 
 
 In the early spring a message came to me from 
 Europe that gave me great pleasure. It was an 
 invitation from my old comrade in arms. Mar- 
 shal Bernadotte, who had been made King of 
 Sweden, to take command of the Swedish cavalry. 
 
164 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 This offer was at once recognition of the service 
 I had rendered in my military career, and an 
 opportunity to return to the place and rank I 
 had lost and, indeed, to something considerably 
 higher. The post of commander of the cavalry 
 of a nation like Sweden, offered a very different 
 prospect from anything that my teaching or work 
 on the farm could ever promise. 
 
 And yet you will be astonished to hear that I 
 declined this kind offer with my best thanks to my 
 old friend. My reason for this seemingly foolish 
 decision was simply and solely this — I felt that, 
 after the experiences I had passed through, I 
 should be sinning against the light that had been 
 given me, were I to turn again to the calling of 
 War. Being under this conviction, I did the only 
 thing that a conscientious man could do, and 
 declined the honor. 
 
 The offer itself, however, was worth much to me. 
 In the first place, it gave me new courage to know 
 that I was still remembered and appreciated by 
 those who knew me best. Then I took an honest 
 pride in showing the letter to a very few esteemed 
 friends, and to one or two purse-proud nobodies 
 who had at times shown a condescending spirit 
 toward me. The sight of the signature of a king 
 and of a royal seal had a remarkable effect on these 
 snobs and worked a transformation in their bear- 
 ing toward me that was laughable. 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 165 
 
 At last the right time seemed to have come, and 
 in the year 1819 I was married, the venerable 
 Pastor Helmuth officiating. As I stood beside my 
 bride, after the ceremony, receiving the congratu- 
 lations of a regiment of friends, I realized most 
 fully that for me the new life under these Western 
 skies had fairly begun. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 IfROM THE FARM TO THE CAPITAL. 
 
 "P IN ALLY the hoped-for opportunity came to 
 leave the drudgery that made up much of my 
 teaching, and to buy a good farm on easy terms. 
 It was located near Reading, Pa., not far from the 
 scene of my famous cavalry charge. I caught at 
 the opportunity, and made no mistake in so doing. 
 The Berks County farmers, while not up to Ney's 
 requirements as cavalrymen, I found skilful in 
 their own business and, not only honest, but also 
 kindly disposed as neighbors. 
 
 The few years I spent in that neighborhood 
 passed away very quickly and pleasantly, bringing 
 me rest of spirit after the continuous changes of 
 almost thirty years, and also the leisure needed to 
 adjust myself to the changed conditions of my life. 
 An ancient proverb warns us that the bow that is 
 always bent loses its elasticity, and these few years 
 of simple farm life meant more to me than I real- 
 ized at the time. Here my sons Lewis and John 
 were born, and here I could have lived on content- 
 edly as a farmer, had it not been for arguments of 
 my friends. A few particular friends, made in the 
 new home, and a number living in Philadelphia, 
 
 166 
 
A ROMANCE OF H J STORY. 167 
 
 finally persuaded me that I owed it to myself, to 
 my family and to my adopted country to put my 
 education and experience to some greater use than 
 I could make of it on the farm. Then, too, my 
 wife's home was in Philadelphia, and in those 
 days, except when the roads were at their best, 
 from Reading to Philadelphia was something of a 
 journey. 
 
 This move from the quiet plenty of country life 
 back to the distractions and uncertainties of the 
 city seemed at the time a piece of very doubtful 
 wisdom. Indeed, in the council of the sages that 
 was wont to gather at our little cross roads store, 
 just out from Reading, there were grave shakings 
 of the head over the folly of a man who could 
 return to the city, having once escaped its perils. 
 Our country pastor went so far as to refer to the 
 man of old who pitched his tent toward Sodom ; 
 but, in the face of all these warnings, I sold the 
 farm, loaded up my wife and babies and made the 
 journey to Philadelphia. Here I resumed with a 
 few of my former pupils in Music and the lan- 
 guages, but was soon able to take up work more to 
 my liking. 
 
 As something of my military career had come to 
 be known to my circle of friends and acquaint- 
 ances, requests began to be made that I should 
 give instruction in fencing. This exercise brought 
 
168 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 a pleasant variety into my daily routine, especially 
 as I possessed a high degree of skill with the 
 sword. Every strong or skillful man is apt to 
 find out sooner or later that there is at least one 
 stronger or more skillful than himself. There 
 were doubtless many better swordsmen than 
 myself in the great armies of Europe; but, as a 
 matter of fact, I never encountered them, weapon 
 in hand. 
 
 In connection with these lessons I soon began to 
 give instruction in military science and tactics to 
 some army officers and to a few others who were 
 ambitious of going into the army. Among my 
 pupils I may name two who attained distinction, 
 General Worth and Major Ringgold of Mexican 
 War fame. I counted not a few other military 
 men among my friends, but most of these I came 
 to know after removing to Washington. One of 
 these. General Samuel Houston, some years after- 
 wards ofifered me the command of the forces of 
 Texas, then engaged in their struggle for freedom 
 from the yoke of Mexico. I held the belief that 
 the Texan cause was a just one, and also had con- 
 fidence that it would come out victorious ; yet 
 these considerations failed to move me to turn 
 again to the profession of arms. If the wise man is 
 he who knows when he has had enough of a thing, 
 then I had wisdom like unto that of Solomon. 
 
A ROMANCE OP HISTORY. 109 
 
 Thus it was that I was once more settled in 
 Philadelphia when Lafayette made his last visit to 
 America. This event was to be one of the turn- 
 ing points in my life, though I little realized on 
 hearing of the expected visit of my venerable 
 friend what the consequences would be to me. 
 But before telling of what this visit of the great 
 Frenchman meant to me personally, it would seem 
 fitting to give a brief sketch of a life so truly 
 noble. 
 
 This man can truthfully be said to have lived 
 for the cause of Humanity. As a mere youth he 
 left home, family and a loved bride to venture his 
 fortune and his life to aid a people living thou- 
 sands of miles distant in the desperate struggle for 
 their liberty. This hero of modern times was 
 born in the Province of Auvergne, France, Sep- 
 tember 6th, 1757, and accordingly was only 
 nineteen years of age when he left his princely 
 home to cast his lot with the American army in its 
 darkest hour. Just at that time Burgoyne seemed 
 to be carrying all before him, and General Howe, 
 with an army much stronger than Washington's, 
 held New York and was pushing on to capture 
 Philadelphia. It was in this gloomy hour that 
 Lafayette came, as though sent of God, to cheer 
 the discouraged patriots with his presence and aid. 
 
 His career in the American army was a most 
 
170 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 honorable one. Landing in January, 1777, at 
 Charleston, he at once joined the army as a vol- 
 unteer, serving as such until the end of July, 
 when he was commissioned by Congress as a 
 Major General. Less than two months later he 
 took part in the Battle of the Brandywine, taking 
 his stand where the fighting was the hottest and 
 refusing to be taken from the field when wounded. 
 In 1779 he returned to France for a short visit 
 and put forth every effort to gain for the American 
 cause the favor and assistance of the French 
 nation. He was successful in this effort and had 
 the joy of returning to America the next year with 
 large re-inforcements. In 178 1 he saw some hard 
 service in Virginia and finally had the pleasure 
 of aiding in the capture of the boastful British 
 commander, Lord Cornwallis. 
 
 This true nobleman had given most freely ot 
 his wealth, of his services under the hardest con- 
 ditions of cold, hunger and nakedness, and of his 
 own blood to the sacred cause of Liberty; but, 
 in the New World, at least, his labors and sacri- 
 fices were appreciated. Wherever he journeyed 
 in the newly-liberated States he was made to feel 
 that he was the guest of honor of a grateful 
 nation, and after he had returned to his home, 
 American gratitude followed him in many grace- 
 ful tributes. 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTOR V. 171 
 
 Very different was the experience he was des- 
 tined to undergo a few years later on European 
 soil. At first here, too, success and personal 
 recognition attended his efforts to further the 
 mighty cause of Humanity. At his own expense 
 he made an experiment toward the emancipation 
 of the negroes. He espoused the interests of the 
 oppressed Protestants, and was strong enough to 
 carry in the National Assembly of 1787 a reso- 
 lution favoring their civil rights. He attempted 
 further to carry through a reform calling for the 
 suppression of the infamous lettres de cachet^ and 
 approved of the demolition of the Bastile. 
 
 In the days of storm and bloodshed that now 
 came upon France, lyafayette showed himself at 
 all times the patriot, and never the partisan. He 
 could and did consistently propose "A declaration 
 of Rights'' and declare "that insurrection against 
 despotism was the most sacred of duties," while 
 protecting the royal family from the fury of the 
 mob. By following this course of independence and 
 true patriotism Lafayette won the approval of his 
 own conscience and the respect of all right-think- 
 ing men ; but he did not please either of the great 
 factions of France, and it was only a question of 
 time until he should be crushed between the 
 upper millstone of revolutionary rage and the 
 nether one of royalist revenge. The lot of the 
 
172 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 conscientious man is truly one of persecution, as 
 was most clearly shown here. Though raised to 
 the honor of being Commander in Chief of the 
 National Guards of France and decorated with 
 the red ribbon of a Marshal, Lafayette had only 
 to protest against indignities offered the King to 
 bring down a decree of accusation upon his own 
 head and to be forsaken by his troops. Realizing 
 the situation, he, accompanied by a dozen or so of 
 personal friends, fled from France in the hope of 
 finding an asylum in some foreign land until 
 better days should open the way for a return to 
 his loved native land. 
 
 But those days of mob fury and of despotic 
 wrath were indeed evil days for men of principle, 
 and our patriot, driven from his country by the 
 revolutionists, was at once arrested by the royal- 
 ists and held by them for years in the close 
 confinement of a prison. The courts of Berlin 
 and Vienna were both implicated in this unjust 
 and inhuman act, and the noble Frenchman and 
 a few of his friends were made to suffer the rigors 
 of solitary confinement in dungeons in Wesel, 
 Magdeburg, Glatz and Olmutz. The captives 
 were told that henceforth they should see noth- 
 ing but the walls of their cells ; that they could 
 expect no information concerning persons or 
 events ; that the mention of their names even 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 173 
 
 by their jailors had been prohibited, and that for 
 the future they were to be known only by num- 
 bers. Under such barbarous treatment as this 
 Lafayette's health began to give way for the 
 second time during his imprisonment, and to save 
 his life, some exercise had to be allowed him. On 
 certain days he was taken out for a drive in an 
 open carriage with an ofl&cer by his side and two 
 soldiers standing behind. 
 
 These stated drives gave Lafayette's friends an 
 opportunity to plan his rescue. Only two took 
 personal part in the attempt, Doctor Bollman, a 
 young German employed for this purpose, and a 
 Mr. Huger, an American travelling in Germany, 
 who volunteered his assistance. Through the 
 military surgeon Dr. Bollman sent Lafayette a 
 pamphlet and a note, the latter being written for 
 the most part in sympathetic ink, invisible unless 
 exposed to the heat. The few lines written with 
 common ink ended with these words : " I am glad 
 of the opportunity of addressing you these few 
 words, which, when read with your usual warmth^ 
 will afford to a heart like yours some consolation." 
 Lafayette took the hint, read the letter and care- 
 fully planned the manner of his escape. As he 
 wrote his friends on the margins of the pamphlet 
 in lemon juice, the rescue could best be eJSfected by 
 overpowering the guard who accompanied him on 
 
174 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 his drives. The two conspirators thought it best 
 to make the attempt alone, and accordingly fol- 
 lowed the carriage on horseback until the right 
 moment seemed to have come. After proceeding 
 several miles the carriage turned into an open 
 plain, and presently Lafayette and the officer 
 stepped out and walked, the guard in the carriage 
 driving slowly on ahead. Just then the two friends 
 galloped up and dismounted, Mr. Huger holding 
 the horses while the doctor hurried to the assist- 
 ance of Lafayette, who meantime had grappled 
 with the officer. The latter was disarmed, but 
 thereupon he seized the Marquis and set up a tre- 
 mendous outcry. The guard, hearing the cries and 
 seeing the struggle, promptly ran away. The offi- 
 cer's mouth was then stopped with a handkerchief, 
 and all would have been well, had not one of the 
 horses taken fright at the unearthly bellowing of 
 the man and slipped his bridle and run offi The 
 doctor then handed his purse to the Marquis and 
 told him to take the horse that was left and make 
 the best of his way to the frontier. This Lafayette 
 did, riding off at his horse's best speed. The res- 
 cuers now recovered their other horse from a 
 countryman who caught him, but, finding that he 
 would not carry double, Mr. Huger told the doctor 
 to follow Lafayette, while he took his chances on 
 foot across the country. He was soon arrested, as 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTOR V. 175 
 
 was the doctor a day later, and they were given 
 eight months in prison in which to reflect on their 
 kindly attempt. Lafayette mistook the road and 
 was arrested within a few miles of the frontier and 
 taken back to his prison. Here about a year later 
 he was joined by his wife and two daughters. 
 These devoted ladies shared the hardships of his 
 imprisonment for two years, suffering greatly in 
 health from the impure air of the prison. 
 
 Finally, in September, 1797, the strong hand of 
 Napoleon opened the door of Lafayette's dungeon 
 and they made their journey to Hamburg. 
 Madame Lafayette was allowed to return to 
 France at once and the Marquis two years later. 
 Napoleon now offered inducements to win our 
 patriot for his party ; but these offers Lafayette 
 steadfastly refused, voting against the consulship 
 for life and raising his voice whenever possible for 
 the liberties of France. During the years of Napo- 
 leon's ascendancy Lafayette lived in retirement 
 upon his estate, though never forgetful of his coun- 
 try's welfare. On the approach of the Allies he 
 offered himself as a candidate and was elected to the 
 House of Deputies and was made Vice-President. 
 After the battle of Waterloo, when the desperate 
 Napoleon was about to usurp all power, Lafayette 
 appeared at the tribune, and held aloft the old tri- 
 Qplpred flag 0/ France, exclaiming : " Liberty, 
 
176 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 Equality and Public Order." He succeeded in 
 having the session of the Legislature declared per- 
 manent, and insisted on the abdication of Napo- 
 leon. 
 
 From this time on our French Washington had 
 been living a quiet, happy life with his family, 
 until in his sixty-seventh year the desire possessed 
 him to visit once more the land across the ocean 
 for which he had ventured so much. The Amer- 
 ican Congress, learning of this purpose, hastened to 
 offer a man-of-war for his voyage, but this was 
 respectfully declined, the aged patriot preferring to 
 come without ostentation in a private vessel. 
 
 To me personally this last American tour of La- 
 fayette can best be described as a God-send. Some 
 friends in power, learning of my acquaintance with 
 the French patriot, had me appointed to lead a 
 mounted escort, a sort of Foreign Legion, made up 
 of some of my own countrymen and others. So it 
 happened that I came face to face with the Marquis 
 as we rode past the reviewing stand, and that he 
 recognized me and, in his warm-hearted way, em- 
 braced me as his cherished friend there before all 
 the great crowd. He also spent a night as my 
 guest, and sweet indeed was our communion of 
 spirit as we lived over the events and experiences 
 through which we had been called to pass. 
 
 My esteemed friend urged me to resume my full 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 177 
 
 name, making the point that if any of the Napo- 
 leonic dynasty were to come to the throne, my 
 claim for recognition would be invalidated by the 
 fact that I had been living under another name. 
 He also insisted that I should accept as a mark of 
 his esteem a gift of one thousand dollars. This I 
 finally consented to do, setting the money aside 
 as a fund toward the purchase of a home when the 
 right opportunity should oflfer. The public recog- 
 nition that Lafayette had given me helped my 
 standing in official circles, bringing me a good 
 position and causing my counsel in military ques- 
 tions to be greatly in demand. 
 
 The lesson of this most pleasant experience in 
 my checkered career seems to be this. Great is 
 the blessing that a true friend brings with him ! 
 Aim to make and keep friends for Friendship's 
 own sweet sake (for otherwise you have not friends 
 at all, but only business acquaintances), and in 
 your hour of need you will not stand alone. Read 
 Cicero and Bacon on "Friendship ;" also the Book 
 of Proverbs, and apply their advice and admon- 
 itions to yourself and you will at once broaden 
 your field of human interests and prosper. 
 
 At the persuasion of my honored friend, Lafayette, 
 
 and on his assurance that a good government 
 
 position would be given me when I should present 
 
 myself to the proper authorities in Washington, I 
 
 12 
 
178 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 now removed to the world-capital of the Future. 
 At first it seemed evident to me and doubly clear 
 to my good wife that we had made a great mistake 
 in leaving comfortable old Philadelphia for the 
 raw young town of Washington ; but the result 
 proved that the unseen hand led us even in this 
 matter. It must be granted that the contrast 
 between the capital of the New World and Paris, 
 for years the capital city of Europe, was a most 
 striking one. The Paris of Napoleon was splendid 
 in some places and squalid in others with the 
 inherited misery of the centuries ; but the Paris 
 of to-day, new created by the skill of the engineer 
 and the expenditure of many millions, is the very 
 epitome of the splendor of this world. I could 
 not but be impressed by the greatly inferior 
 appearance of Washington, having but a few 
 buildings worthy of a nation's capital, and with 
 great stretches of waste territory and even of 
 unpaved streets. 
 
 Yet, even in the midst of the unfavorable first 
 impression, I could see the promise of great beauty 
 and dignity in the days to come. This was to be 
 seen first of all in the broad conception and scope 
 of the city's plan. Here was abundant room for 
 the harmonious grouping of the great buildings 
 that would in time be necessary for the adminis- 
 tration of the nation's affairs, room too for beauti- 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 179 
 
 ful parks and stately avenues and finally for the 
 generous spaces that are essential to dignity. And 
 by what process would this city become in time 
 the city beautiful ? Not by the spoil of other 
 nations, but by the freely rendered tribute of a 
 great people ; yes, the greatest' of peoples when 
 the years should bring growth. 
 
 Among the things that I saw and learned during 
 my life in Washington, there are several that 
 should be named. First, I saw clearly that the 
 true power and beauty of Democracy was to be 
 found here in America as in no other land or 
 previous age. That, though only half-grown as 
 yet, here was the Republic of all time, to truly 
 serve which was nobler than to be a king, and to 
 die for which would be to die for Humanity. 
 Greater by far than the contrast between the civi- 
 lization of the Old World and that of the New 
 was the contrast between the virile, though for 
 the most part uncultured, men who came as Rep- 
 resentatives to Washington, and the excitable and 
 sometimes vainglorious Deputies of the French 
 Chamber. 
 
 You ask, what was my own life or occupation 
 while in the Capital ? It may be described as a 
 development of that which I had for some years 
 been leading. A government position assured me 
 of a modest living, and left me much leisure for 
 
180 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 other pursuits. At this time I tried my hand at 
 authorship, writing a "Life of Napoleon Bona- 
 parte, by an American Citizen," which, how- 
 ever, I did not publish until some years later. 
 I may as well confess that this venture was a 
 failure, at least, comparatively speaking. This 
 may have been because of the lack of a well- 
 known name on the title page, it may have been 
 because of the incompetence of my publishers, 
 or it may have been because I failed to touch a 
 popular chord. 
 
 Many and pleasant were the acquaintances I 
 formed during these years with representative 
 public men. Though I say it myself, my own 
 bearing could not but show something of the 
 culture in the midst of which I had grown up, and 
 also something of the twenty-two years crowded 
 with experiences of camp, battle-field and court. 
 
 Among those whom I may name as my friends 
 were General Houston, already named ; General 
 Cass, whom I may call my patron in official cir- 
 cles, and Henry Clay, the American statesman. 
 This last named gentleman I was to meet again 
 in the West, for in 1842 he came to my later 
 home in Henry County, Indiana, and spoke at 
 Knightstown. On this occasion I had the pleasure 
 of being chairman of the reception committee 
 and of introducing my old friend to my neighbors, 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 WESTWARD HO. 
 
 'T'HE good word that Marquis de Lafayette 
 had spoken on my behalf at Washington 
 brought me a comfortable government position 
 which relieved me of the necessity of teaching. 
 In the mixed society of Philadelphia there were 
 those of truly noble spirit whose lives had been 
 lacking in opportunities for culture, and to 
 instruct these in the languages and literature of 
 our age was a real pleasure. Unfortunately, 
 however, there were others who were nothing 
 more than rich upstarts, and my circumstances 
 had made it necessary for me to teach these also, 
 much as my independent spirit rebelled against 
 the task. This labor, pleasant or distasteful, was 
 now at an end, as my recognized knowledge of 
 the usage of the courts of Europe and also of 
 military matters entitled me to a position that 
 carried with it a good salary. 
 
 The Marquis' son, George Washington Lafay- 
 ette, who had been an intimate friend of mine 
 in France, persuaded me to take up the pen and 
 prepare a lecture on Napoleon Bonaparte and his 
 career. I did this and for the second time had the 
 
 181 
 
182 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 pleasant experience of knowing what it means to 
 have a friend in power, for the prestige of the 
 name of Lafayette enabled me to deliver my 
 lecture to large and influential audiences in the 
 Eastern cities. To my astonishment the financial 
 results of these two lectures amounted to $1,400, 
 and this sum, together with the gift Lafayette 
 had forced upon me, I resolved to keep untouched 
 until it could be used to advantage for the pur- 
 chase of a home for my dear wife and little ones. 
 
 I might as well confess just here that my finan- 
 cial management in the past had not been bril- 
 liant. To exercise an open-handed hospitality 
 and to relieve the wants of the stranger, especially 
 if he happened to be a fellow-countryman or an 
 old comrade in arms, seemed to me to be one of 
 the greatest pleasures of life, besides being the 
 only right course. My good wife held different 
 views on this question of hospitality, and at times 
 reminded me of the duty of providing first of all 
 for one's own household. 
 
 Some years passed very pleasantly in this life at 
 the Capital ; but then I grew to tire of it exceed- 
 ingly, and to picture to myself the sweet freedom 
 of the frontiersman, as it had been pictured to me 
 by friends like General Houston. 
 
 By the year 1833 ^Y longings had taken definite 
 shape, and the word with us was Westward Ho ! 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 183 
 
 For some time I considered the usual route to the 
 West, viz. : by team to Pittsburg, and then by boat 
 down the Ohio to some convenient location. 
 Finally I decided against this route, and chose, on 
 grounds of greater comfort and privacy for my 
 family, to make the whole journey overland by a 
 more northern route. 
 
 Leaving Washington in the Spring, we trav- 
 elled by stage to Lancaster, Pa. Here I had a 
 reliable German wagon builder make me a home 
 on wheels that would carry us without mishap and 
 with all possible comfort over the rough roads and 
 through the streams that might be found between 
 the cozy little Pennsylvania city and our new 
 home in the distant West. Built into the wagon, 
 in a place known only to the builder, myself and 
 my wife, was a receptacle for our family treasure 
 (which was in gold) and for a few papers that I 
 valued above gold. Two good strong horses, a 
 milk cow and a trusty dog made up the caravan 
 with which I, a Nineteenth Century patriarch, 
 journeyed toward my land of promise. 
 
 Starting from Lancaster, we made our way to 
 the Susquehanna River, then on up the Valley of 
 the Juniata to a point near its head-waters in the 
 Allegheny Mountains. For the sake of wife and 
 little ones I made the journey by very easy stages, 
 camping here and there to rest and fish. Our feel- 
 
184 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 ing during the whole journey was one of perfect 
 security, for was not the God of the fathers looking 
 down upon us from heaven, and did not my rifle, 
 sword and pistols hang within reach in the wagon ? 
 The mountain summit crossed, we followed the 
 Conemaugh, the Kiskiminetas and the Allegheny 
 rivers to Pittsburg. We spent a few days in this 
 city and then on westward, following as much as 
 possible the river valleys. Fall came on somewhat 
 early that year, so, remembering the retreat from 
 Moscow, I thought it best to put up for the Winter 
 in a small city in Ohio. By so doing the change 
 from life in Washington to that on a frontier farm 
 was made less abrupt. Our canvass wagon roof 
 had become very home-like during those long sum- 
 mer days along the rivers and on the mountain 
 slopes ; but, when the winter winds blew their icy 
 breath over the land and the streams froze hard, 
 we thanked God for the walls that shut out the 
 cold and for the tight roof of shingles overhead. 
 As the teaching of Music and the languages had 
 become an old story with me, I had no diflficulty 
 in supporting myself and family in comfort until 
 Spring. When the gentle voices of Spring began 
 to be heard in field and forest (and when the mud 
 had dried up enough to make the roads passable), 
 we entered our wagon-home and resumed our jour- 
 ney westward. 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 185 
 
 In Rush County, in Central Indiana, we came to 
 a fertile and attractive region that pleased me 
 greatly, and so I decided our long journey should 
 end. Some government land was still to be had 
 and considerable other still in forest at very low 
 figures ; but, as my wife was hardly rugged enough 
 to endure the privations of real frontier life, and, 
 as all but one of the children were as yet too small 
 to help in any hard labor, I thought it best to buy 
 a good farm that was provided with buildings and 
 partly improved. 
 
 So farm life began, and from its first day I real- 
 ized that here at last was the life of independence 
 of which I had so often dreamed while waiting the 
 convenience of some rich upstart of a pupil. As I 
 trod the fertile acres or explored the woodland or 
 planned orchard and garden, I felt not only the 
 joy of ownership, but even more — a deep-seated 
 sense of having reached the primeval life for which 
 man was created. Here I was, a travel-worn 
 Adam, at last settled in my Paradise, and, to add to 
 my happiness, my family down to the baby seemed 
 to enjoy with me the delight of getting back to 
 Nature. Adam had the work of naming the 
 animals ; but I had first to buy mine and then to 
 name them. I need hardly say that in those 
 pioneer days the cattle were of mixed and peculiar 
 breeds, some of them being half wild and better 
 
186 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 suited for the menagerie than for the farm. On 
 making this discovery, I found a certain consola- 
 tion in naming my stock after certain members of 
 Napoleon's family and court. One especially 
 vicious ox I still remember as bearing the appro- 
 priate name of Talleyrand. 
 
 One kind of War there was still to be waged 
 even in this peaceful Western land — that against 
 the bears, wolves and other wild beasts that occa- 
 sionally ravaged our flocks. To take the rifle or 
 hunting knife against these, or in pursuit of the 
 deer, whose flesh one needed to help out the win- 
 ter's food supply, I considered legitimate war, and 
 the only kind one is justified in beginning. When 
 the leaves had fallen in Autumn, or even in the 
 sharp cold of Winter, I used to enjoy taking the 
 field alone, or with a little company of neighbors, 
 to make good use of the art of War by tracking 
 some destructive beast to his lair, and then, per- 
 haps, finishing him in fair combat, i. e.^ the man 
 with his knife against the beast with his weapons 
 of tooth and claw. 
 
 Besides this occasional warfare against the wild 
 beast, there was another kind of warfare, that I 
 may call moral warfare, which I soon found to 
 be necessary against the forces of Ignorance and 
 Evil. 
 
 Among the laborious pioneers there were to 
 
A ROMANCE Of HISTORY. 187 
 
 be found here and there, and especially in the 
 southern part of the State near the Ohio river, 
 those representing an entirely different element — 
 that of the outlaw and the criminal. Drinking, 
 thieving, especially of cattle and horses ; and 
 fighting, both with the fists and with knife or 
 gun, were the favorite pastimes of these ruffians. 
 Numerically they formed only a small part of 
 the population, but their evil influence was far- 
 reaching. From my first settlement in the West, 
 I recognized the presence of this bad element 
 and saw the necessity of taking a stand against 
 it. This I did, letting my trumpet of warning 
 give no uncertain sound. 
 
 While the first source of the evil lives of this 
 element was undoubtedly an evil heart ; yet there 
 was another factor that could almost always be 
 found at work inciting them to their various 
 deeds of brutishness and other wickedness, and 
 that was liquor, generally in the form of whisky. 
 The Temperance cause was certainly a worthy 
 one under such conditions, and it had its faith- 
 ful advocates. I promptly enrolled myself among 
 these, and, though I say it myself, I was fairly 
 well qualified to speak on the subject, having 
 been a strictly temperate man, even through my 
 long and most severe military experience, and 
 having seen many a promising life ruined by 
 
188 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS 
 
 drink. There were difficulties and dangers in 
 our crusade for Temperance that made it a real 
 warfare. We found not only the vicious element, 
 but generally also the well-meaning majority 
 against us, at least in sentiment. Public meet- 
 ings held for our cause were often disturbed and 
 sometimes broken up by acts of rowdyism. Such 
 cases called for heroic treatment, and a time or 
 two when the sons of Belial went so far as to 
 throw rocks through the windows, I made as 
 many of them as lingered within reach feel some- 
 thing of the horrors of War by performing on 
 their anatomies with a cane that was at once 
 pliable and heavy. Some of the rowdies would 
 get hurt in these arguments and threaten me 
 with the law or with private vengeance ; but I 
 was none the worse for their cursing, and a sec- 
 ond meeting in behalf of Temperance was always 
 well attended in neighborhoods where the ques- 
 tion had been thus put to the argument. I might 
 add that at times, by other argument and appeal 
 than that of the club, not a few were led to 
 entertain new views and practices in the matter 
 of Temperance. 
 
 In this connection I may mention an amusing 
 incident that occurred somewhat later in a town 
 in Kentucky where I happened to be for a day 
 or two. There was a drunken brawl in progress 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 189 
 
 on the street, and as quite a number were 
 involved in it, the people with whom I was 
 speaking began to be alarmed. I remarked just 
 then that a few hussars would soon quiet them. 
 My remark was caught up by some by-stander, 
 and the word hussar construed to mean the men 
 of the State of Indiana (from which I had just 
 come), and thus the word "Hoosier" came into 
 existence. Such is the irony of Fate ! Learned 
 men have labored long to introduce some favored 
 word of the most approved classic derivation, 
 and as a rule they have failed. Here a chance 
 word of mine, miscalled by an ignorant loafer, 
 catches the popular fancy and passes into lyit- 
 erature. 
 
 There was one affair in which I became 
 involved in those days, that might be of interest, 
 because of its unusual features. A Frenchman, 
 a muscular fellow of some military experience 
 and skill, came drifting across my track, and 
 learning something of my record, challenged me 
 to a fencing contest. I had laid aside my mili- 
 tary character for good and all, I hoped, and I 
 refused to have anything to do with the man 
 until I found that, because of his boasts and 
 insinuations, my standing in the neighborhood 
 was beginning to suflfer. Then I agreed to meet 
 him when and where he pleased. Fencing swords 
 
190 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 were not to be had in that country, so hickory 
 imitations were used. The place of combat was 
 a room about thirty feet by sixty in size, and it 
 was well filled with admiring spectators. At first 
 I let the fellow think that the day was his, for, 
 merely parrying his strokes, I retreated slowly 
 toward one end of the room. My antagonist 
 thereupon lifted up his voice in triumph: "Why 
 don't you advance? Why don't you advance?'' 
 "Protect your right wrist," I said; but a sneer 
 of contempt was his only answer, and I fetched 
 him a blow that shattered his wrist. 
 
 A strange thing is the vanity of man, and this 
 was a notable example. No sooner was that 
 Frenchman's wrist healed than he challenged me 
 to a second contest, declaring that I could not 
 cripple him again. As the fellow insisted until 
 he wearied me, I consented to meet him the 
 second time, and gave him a repetition of his first 
 lesson. 
 
 I could have ended my days in fullest content in 
 the simple, quiet life of the farm ; but so it was 
 not to be, for tlie call of Humanity sounded in my 
 ears bidding me use for its aid the talents the 
 Lord had given me. The first call of this kind 
 was to the practice of Medicine. Physicians were 
 scarce in those days in the newly-settled districts, 
 and yet there was the need for their skill, as the 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 191 
 
 privations and exposure of pioneer life often 
 brought on attacks of illness and accidents could 
 happen on the frontier just about as often as else- 
 where. So it came about that I was called upon 
 as a man of education to advise and aid, and thus 
 I was constrained to call to mind what I had seen 
 in boyhood days of my father's treatment of dis_ 
 ease or to put into service something of the rude 
 surgery of the battle-field. So often was I called 
 upon either as physician or surgeon that I came 
 to be known as "the Polish Doctor." A very fair 
 degree of success attended my efiforts ; yet I did 
 not become wealthy through the practice of Medi- 
 cine, in fact I was satisfied if my outlay for drugs, 
 etc., came back to me. There were several rea- 
 sons for this state of affairs, the principal one of 
 which was that I rendered no bills and in cases 
 of distress refused payment when offered me. 
 Then too there were a certain people who took 
 my services as a matter of course, forgetting to do 
 as much as to thank me. Snch treatment I took 
 very philosophically, feeling repaid for my labor, 
 provided only that I could prolong some life that 
 was necessary to a family's welfare, and especially 
 if I could save the lives of the helpless and trusting 
 little children. 
 
 At times already in those first years in the West 
 I preached to my neighbors, for I realized that 
 
192 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 any such moral reform as Temperance, to be com- 
 plete and permanent, must be grounded in the 
 understanding of the great spiritual truths of 
 repentance for sin and faith in the Lord Jesus. 
 I felt the more justified in this work of the min- 
 istry from the fact that before starting for the 
 West, I had a kind of instinctive or prophetic 
 feeling of what the spiritual necessities of the 
 case would be, and had myself licensed by one of 
 the Lutheran synods to preach the gospel. 
 
 What is more, the church in which I did my 
 first preaching I built myself with the aid of a 
 few God-fearing neighbors, the last of the gold 
 pieces I brought with me from Washington being 
 dedicated to the most worthy cause of paying for 
 the materials and furniture for this modest sanc- 
 tuary. When this tabernacle was finished and set 
 apart to the use of the Most High, I was a happy 
 man indeed, realizing in my very heart that the 
 God of the fathers who had upheld me through 
 so many perils was now with me and my loved 
 ones as never before. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 NATION BUII.DING. 
 
 'T^O one who had been associated in any way with 
 the attempted reconstruction of French gov- 
 ernment and society there could not but be a 
 constant pleasure in the political and social devel- 
 opment of this young and free nation. There was 
 no rubbish or wreckage of Mediaevalism in worn- 
 out forms of Monarchy, Aristocracy and Prelacy 
 to be cleared away here. There were no fires of 
 hatred, smouldering for generations, to burst out 
 here in sudden fury and flame, sweeping the 
 results of much honest and patient labor into ruin. 
 Everything here was in primeval newness and 
 freshness, the earth itself being as yet unsubdued 
 by the hand of man, and society as yet unformed, 
 awaiting the hand of the statesman and the edu- 
 cator. This former work, viz., the subduing of 
 the earth, the felling of the forests, the draining 
 of the low lands, the making of roads, and, in 
 general, providing the necessaries of life, could 
 be trusted to take care of itself ; for here the 
 mighty power of Self-interest was in operation. 
 As for the latter work, the true society-building 
 
 13 193 
 
194 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 or nation-building, here a wise and helping hand 
 was needed. Without such a guiding hand there 
 was nothing to be expected but the natural drift 
 of things, or the fruits of the natural spirit of 
 man. In Revolutionary France this fruitage was 
 of a variety at which the civilized world shud- 
 dered ; here in the backwoods this same root and 
 stock ran to all manner of crudeness and even 
 brutishness, as to the dog-fight or drinking bout, 
 rather than to the things and influences that 
 ennoble life. 
 
 My part in changing this drift toward evil and 
 in bringing in the influences that uplift was no 
 small one; but, before going on to tell of my 
 efforts in this direction, it might be well to say a 
 few words about my personal or family life. 
 
 As I have already said, it was my privilege to 
 relieve some suffering and to save a few lives by 
 the time and labor I gave to the practice of Medi- 
 cine. In this labor of love I was enabled to save 
 others, but my own I could not save, and my dear 
 wife and two of the little ones were taken from 
 me by the hand of Death. This bereavement led 
 very soon to the breaking up of my home and 
 then to my removal to the southern part of the 
 State. In the course of the years that followed I 
 made my home in Corydon, then once more in 
 Rush County, in Knightstown, in Hamburg, 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 195 
 
 and now in Sellersburg. There were temporary 
 sojourns in several other places and much travel- 
 ing ; but of this I need not now speak. 
 
 What was the special service, you ask, that I 
 now turned to on behalf of the great family of 
 man? In the first place it was not politics. There 
 is seldom or ever any lack, I have observed, of 
 those who are willing to serve their country by 
 holding office. I sought no preferment, and felt 
 that, as conditions were, I could do more good in 
 other directions to which but few considered them- 
 selves called. The honor of introducing my 
 esteemed friend, Henry Clay, to the people of 
 Knightstown was accorded me ; but as an offset 
 to this I was assailed in another part of the State 
 as an imposter. This report was started by a 
 wandering Pole who came into the neighborhood 
 of my home in Clark County. I at once demanded 
 an investigation, and my fellow citizens promptly 
 took the matter in hand and appointed a com- 
 mittee, summoning my accuser to appear and 
 present his proofs. He could prove nothing, his 
 sole argument being that I did not speak the 
 Polish language as he did. A public meeting was 
 then held. Dr. Mitchell, a State Senator presiding, 
 and the fellow was publicly reprimanded. I might 
 say just here that my name and services under 
 Napoleon are mentioned in the book " Memoires 
 
196 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS. 
 
 des Braves ; " but, when all is said, what is a little, 
 passing worldly fame ? 
 
 The work of my life in which I take genuine 
 satisfaction is that which I was led and strength- 
 ened to do for the up-lifting of my fellow men. 
 I have already referred to my efforts on behalf of 
 Temperance, and I shall speak later of the work 
 I was enabled to do in the gospel ministry. Just 
 now I shall say a few words about my efforts for 
 the causes of Education and Philanthropy. One 
 of the greatest needs of the people of that Western 
 region was for educational institutions, and espe- 
 cially for such in which a future ministry could 
 be trained. I realized this fact to the extent of 
 giving of my own means the money for the build- 
 ing of a brick academy, twenty-four by fifty feet 
 in size, at Corydon, Ind., and employing a qualified 
 man as principal. I also attempted the establish- 
 ment of a college at Hillsboro, 111., acted for some 
 time as its Financial Agent, and out of my own 
 means purchased a respectable library for it. How- 
 ever this effort was a failure, as my means were 
 limited, and I was practically the only one who 
 took a living interest in the prospective college. 
 There were some to whom the cause was pre- 
 sented whose means greatly exceeded mine, and 
 others who out of love for their church should 
 have labored early and late for the founding of a 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 197 
 
 college. The reason these people did nothing at 
 all, even when urged to help, I can find only in 
 the ignorant and selfish prejudice of the one class 
 against a liberal education and in the indifference 
 and jealousy of the others. The thought of the 
 changed conditions that would have been brought 
 about in the lives of thousands by the establish- 
 ment at that time of a stronghold of Christian 
 education is a picture upon which I do not like to 
 look. But let the Past bury its own dead ! 
 
 My labors for Philanthropy were given to the 
 development of the Immigrants' Friend's Society, 
 an organization having its headquarters in Cincin- 
 nati, but whose helpful activities reached into a 
 number of States. No one who had ever looked 
 thoughtfully on the great human tide flowing into 
 the new and fertile regions bordering the Ohio, the 
 Mississippi and Missouri rivers could doubt the 
 need of some such an organization. Among the 
 thousands of immigrants cases of destitution or of 
 other misfortune were constantly occurring where 
 the gift or loan of a very small sum at the critical 
 moment would often relieve the distress and save a 
 family from falling helplessly into the wretched- 
 ness of pauperism. Then, again, it was not so 
 much money that was needed as advice and encour- 
 agement to some laborious man who, because of 
 his ignorance of the laws and fear of the courts, 
 
198 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 was in danger of being robbed of his hard-earned 
 little property by the human sharks whose occupa- 
 tion it was to prey on the unwary and the helpless. 
 You would be surprised to know upon what a 
 foundation, stained with tears and blood, some of 
 the large fortunes of these States rest. Extortion 
 and robbery, carried on just within the limits of the 
 law by heartless men, have resulted in some big 
 fortunes in these Western regions, just as, I am 
 told, the fortunes of some families prominent in 
 the society of Eastern cities had their origin in the 
 Slave Trade or in the manufacture or sale of liquor. 
 By giving some little aid, and yet oftener by tak- 
 ing up the role of advocate before the court, I have 
 been able to snatch many an honest man or his 
 hard-won home from the very jaws of these land 
 sharks. I am free to confess that I found a certain 
 pleasure in thwarting these beasts of prey and in 
 holding them up to the scorn of honest men. This 
 labor I considered that of the true knight errant, 
 and it is a career that in some modified form can 
 be followed wherever men are found. 
 
 Whence, you ask, did I get the means needed to 
 carry on this work for Humanity ? Some of the 
 money came from the East and some from the 
 West, some from the cities and some from the 
 country, some from the rich and some from the 
 poor, for the I^ord raises up friends for His work in 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 199 
 
 the most unexpected places. A large part, how- 
 ever, of what I used I earned myself, for my expe- 
 rience was that in the same time and with the 
 same labor I could earn more money than I could 
 collect even for the best of causes. 
 
 I did not earn this money by farming, nor yet 
 by the practice of Medicine, but by lecturing on 
 the career of Napoleon and kindred topics. Here 
 was at least a small Fortunatus' purse, for my sub- 
 ject, I found, was one of unfailing interest to intel- 
 ligent Americans and, though I say it myself, I 
 was qualified to speak effectively on it. Kind 
 Nature had given me a somewhat imposing pres- 
 ence, a sonorous and pleasing voice, the gift of 
 language and a memory that has enabled me to 
 recount not a few memorable utterances almost 
 verbatim. By the use of these gifts, especially in 
 the East, where the greatest population and wealth 
 are, I have earned a large amount of money, 
 besides meeting representative people of all sec- 
 tions and enjoying many pleasant experiences. 
 One experience I may mention which, while not so 
 pleasant, was at least interesting. 
 
 My lecture on " The Destruction of the Inquisi- 
 tion at Madrid " was very objectionable to the 
 Roman Catholics, entering as it did into matters 
 that they would have preferred keeping strictly to 
 themselves. At times I stirred up their wrath and 
 
200 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 violence by delivering this lecture; but I did not 
 let such outbreaks frighten me from telling the 
 whole truth, any more than sturdy Martin Luther 
 let himself be kept back in his course by angry 
 dukes or raging devils. I do not believe that the 
 horrors of the Inquisition could be repeated in any 
 civilized land on earth, but I fail to see that this 
 fact demands our silence in regard to momentous 
 facts of History. 
 
 Once, when this lecture was announced to be 
 delivered at Jeffersonville, Indiana, I was warned 
 by the Romanists and advised by my friends that 
 it could not be given. A mob gathered to do me 
 violence ; but old soldiers are not easily terrified 
 and I stood my ground after the manner of the 
 Old Guard. "I announced the lecture," I said, 
 "and I propose to deliver it, unless ordered not 
 to do so by the proper authorities." The lecture 
 was delivered, though at its close my friends had 
 an exciting time in getting me safely out of the 
 building and away. 
 
 You cannot but know the estimate the great 
 majority put upon Wealth and upon those who 
 hold it. Let me say here. Money is not the true 
 standard of ability or success. The world's great- 
 est and best men have either had no time for 
 money-getting, or, having wealth, have considered 
 it only as a means to some nobler end. As the 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 201 
 
 world reckons, I am a poor man in my old age; 
 but two considerable fortunes have passsd through 
 my hands, viz., the fortune, and high rank with 
 it, that Napoleon more than once offered me, and 
 the fortune I earned by my lectures. The first of 
 these fortunes I never accepted (and my conscience 
 is the easier and my sleep the sweeter for that fact) 
 and the second has long since passed out of my 
 hands. No one can tell me that it has been 
 wasted or trifled away, for I know that it is out at 
 high interest, loaned to the Lord. 
 
 As to the luxury in which we live out here in 
 the woods of Indiana, you may judge from the 
 description of my home near Corydon, which is a 
 fair example of the houses first built in these 
 regions. 
 
 This house was situated about two and a half 
 miles northwest of Corydon, in the midst of a 
 cleared agricultural district of rich clay soil. The 
 surrounding land abounds in sink holes and 
 patches of *' niggerhead" stones. The house 
 stood on a gentle knoll, lying between two of 
 these sinks, in one of which was a small cavern, 
 containing a small spring and serving as a dairy 
 for the farm. The dwelling consisted of two 
 rooms : one was eighteen feet square, built of 
 logs, cut from the forest and hewed on both sides; 
 the cracks were chinked and plastered. There 
 
202 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 was a loft room next the rafters, which in former 
 times had been reached from without by means 
 of a ladder, but which was now reached by a 
 steep stairway in one corner of the room. The 
 other room consisted of a frame addition about 
 fourteen feet square, one story high and with a 
 roof sloping from the main building. The whole 
 building was covered with clapboards split out of 
 a large white oak. There was a front door and 
 window to the log room and a back door led to 
 the frame part, which also had a door and a 
 window. A large, old-fashioned fire place in one 
 end of the log room supplied the heat. 
 
 Speaking of this home, I am reminded that I 
 have not mentioned the fact that I married again in 
 1837, the lady being Miss Lydia Sieg of Corydon. 
 I was sixty-four years old at the time and she in 
 her twenties ; yet there was true affection in our 
 union, the proof of which statement is to be seen 
 in the happy life that we have lived together. I 
 know that there are those who expect reasons or 
 excuses from the widower who marries again. I 
 shall at least not set up the usual plea, that it 
 was for the sake of my children that I married 
 the second time. I prefer to say that it was for 
 my own sake, that I might enjoy again the com- 
 panionship of woman. Here I fall back upon a 
 great poet of ancient Greece who is responsible 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 203 
 
 for the statement that there is no complete man, 
 since Jupiter in a moment of anger divided man 
 into two parts, one of which he called woman. 
 
 I must relate one more of what I consider my 
 life-experiences. As one who had come to be 
 something of a public character I received many 
 calls from strangers, whether prominent or other- 
 wise, who journeyed my way. Occasionally I had 
 the pleasure of greeting in my remote Western 
 home some countryman or old comrade, and those 
 days were marked days in my calendar. 
 
 One day I was sitting on the porch of my 
 home at Knightstown when an elderly man came 
 down the street, looking sharply at the houses 
 as he passed. There was something strangely 
 familiar in his appearance and manner ; but the 
 only man he reminded me of had, to the best of 
 my knowledge, fallen years before in Paris, a 
 victim to Bourbon hatred. As he came face to 
 face with me the man's face lit up with a pecu- 
 liarly winning smile, he threw into his bearing 
 the dignity and power of the born commander 
 and, in a voice that I should have recognized, I 
 believe, in another world, spoke in French the 
 old stirring words that used to send us hurling 
 ourselves into the charge. Man or ghost, as he 
 might be, I knew then that the figure before me 
 was none other than Marshal Ney, and in two 
 
204 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 bounds I was out in the street embracing him. 
 He told me in a few words, as I have already told 
 you, the story of his wonderful escape from death 
 and of his flight to America and residence here 
 in the South. At his request I introduced him to 
 my family under an assumed name, for caution 
 had become second nature to " the Bravest of the 
 Brave." The fatted calf was assuredly killed for 
 the entertainment of this loved one who had 
 been dead, as I so long thought, and was alive 
 again. Almost every moment of his brief stay 
 we spent in living over the thrilling events of the 
 past that we had experienced together in the Old 
 World, and in relating how we had been led 
 to the point whence we could review so many 
 mercies. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A SERVANT OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 /^NE Sunday evening a year or two after 
 coming West, as I sat reflecting not only 
 on the events of the day, but yet more on the 
 spiritual needs of the people of this great, raw 
 land, I opened my Bible almost unconsciously at 
 the Book of Acts and read from the beginning 
 until I came to Chapter Five, Verse Twenty ; then 
 I paused, lost in thought. " Go, stand and speak 
 in the temple to the people all the words of this 
 life." 
 
 Was not this work of the preacher of the Word 
 of God after all the noblest in which any man 
 could engage? What was the service of the 
 greatest monarch of earth compared with the 
 service of the King of Kings, who is also the 
 Captain of our salvation and who died that we 
 might live ? Had I not known, to my sorrow too 
 well, how millions of human beings had died in 
 the crash of battle and in the agony of those who 
 lie maimed and helpless on the battle-swept field 
 and die through the long hours or afterwards of 
 disease or by the pangs of starvation — and all 
 that one man might grasp and hold supreme 
 power? Even before all this destruction of pre- 
 
 205 
 
206 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 cious life had not other myriads died in the awful 
 havoc of revolution, to satisfy the blind, brutish 
 rage of a de-humanized populace ? 
 
 And now One dies that many may live and live 
 as children of God, even in this sin-stained life, 
 and then through all the ages to come in the 
 light of His face. Surely this is a message to be 
 proclaimed far and near, even to all the people. 
 How must it be proclaimed and where and by 
 whom? A message so glorious should be her- 
 alded to the world, openly and boldly ; yes, at 
 all times and by everyone who knows it in his 
 heart. 
 
 Was I such a one ? Was I, who like David had 
 been a man of blood, a rough-handed soldier, a fit 
 man to proclaim this gospel of pardon and peace ? 
 On the other hand had not an all-wise Providence 
 guided me to this hour ? Had I not been kept 
 from present death one hundred times, and taken 
 from prison and led, as God's servants of old, over 
 sea and land, that I might be brought to this 
 place of great possible service? More than all 
 this, had I not been redeemed with the precious 
 blood and saved from a bondage and death in- 
 finitely worse than any that the tyrants of earth 
 could inflict, even that of sin ? And to what end 
 was all this loving care of a Heavenly Father, 
 this guidance by the hand of the true Shepherd 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 207 
 
 of Israel, and these pleadings of the mighty Spirit 
 of Truth ? 
 
 As I had tasted and known by many a strange 
 experience and in many a providential escape that 
 the Lord is good, was I not one of those who should 
 say: "We also believe, and therefore speak?" 
 As I had been tried in my faith in the God of the 
 fathers and in His Son, the Saviour of the World' 
 by many an infidel sneer and argument of devilish 
 cunning, and by the grace of God had kept the 
 faith, was it not fitting that I should go forth 
 among men as a champion of that most holy 
 faith? Having been tried with the fiery trial of 
 temptation, both from the evil thoughts and de- 
 sires which arise within and by the assaults of 
 evil from without, was I not one to testify to the 
 world that there is one who takes His place by the 
 side of those who are called upon to pass through 
 the fiery furnace? 
 
 As I thought on these heart-searching questions, ; 
 there came whisperings of my guardian angel 
 whose voice had directed me into the path of 
 Right many a time before. Amid these whisper- 
 ings I heard in my spirit the voice of the Lord 
 Jesus saying unto me : Thou also art a witness to 
 these things. 
 
 To tell the whole truth, I must confess that Self 
 had his word on this question, urging that, if I 
 
208 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 continued to give my efforts for the relief of suffer- 
 ing humanity, I was certainly justified in giving 
 part of my time to my own interests, developing 
 my powers in the lecture field and enjoying for 
 myself and my family a fair measure of the harvest 
 there to be reaped. 
 
 However, I realized that ray call was from the 
 Lord Himself, and not to be ignored ; the only 
 question was that of my qualifications for the oflSce 
 of the ministry, as these should appear to others 
 and, above all, to the Church. It is true that I 
 was more than sixty years of age when I resolved 
 upon this step, but then my vigor was unabated, 
 and I had not only those years of experience in 
 the great school of Life ; but also the spiritual 
 strength that came from my early training in 
 the Law of the Lord and from the faithful use 
 through more than forty years of the whole Word 
 that is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for cor- 
 rection, for instruction in righteousness. 
 
 Much technical theological knowledge was lack- 
 ing in my case ; but I knew my Bible and I knew 
 the heart of man, and my own heart as well. The 
 qualifications of many of the ministers of the gos- 
 pel in this region at that time were certainly no 
 greater than my own, and some of them were 
 giving only a half service, devoting the larger 
 part of the week to worldly callings and only one 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 209 
 
 day to the work of the Lord. There was no col- 
 lege or seminary accessible to us in those days in 
 which could be done the great and necessary work 
 that my friend, Dr. S. S. Schmucker was doing at 
 Gettysburg in educating together, /. e. into one- 
 ness of faith and spirit, a ministry for the needs 
 of our field. With us it was much as at one time 
 in Israel, " Every man did what was right in his 
 own eyes." 
 
 I clearly saw this sad fact of the lack of unity 
 among our scanty forces when I visited the newly- 
 organized Synod of the West in October of the 
 year 1835 at its meeting in Louisville, Ky. How- 
 ever I was not deterred from my purpose by this 
 fact, but rather somewhat impelled to join the 
 little band and do what in me lay to increase its 
 unity and efficiency. Accordingly just one year 
 later I was ordained to the holy gospel ministry by 
 the laying on of the hands of the elders who were 
 such in truth, men who had toiled and sacrificed 
 for the work of the Master. The service was a very 
 plain one ; yet I felt that it meant promotion on 
 the field of battle at the hands of fellow soldiers. 
 
 And what, you ask, has been the especial work 
 of my ministry ? Before answering this question 
 I must state what I consider the ministry itself to 
 be. Is it not the service of one's fellow men in 
 the light and spirit of the gospel of Christ? As 
 "14 
 
210 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 I understand the meaning of this word, I was 
 engaged in the work of the ministry, not only 
 when preaching the word and administering the 
 sacraments, but also when caring for the sick and 
 injured for sweet Charity's sake or when relieving 
 the destitute or even when securing justice with- 
 out price for the oppressed. 
 
 Considered with a view to its extent, my minis- 
 try was a truly apostolic one in its journeyings and 
 hardships. During the score of years of labor in 
 the ministry that have been granted me I have 
 made repeated trips through Indiana, Ohio, Illi- 
 nois, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri, preach- 
 ing, catechising and organizing congregations. 
 Alone in the pathless forests and over the seem- 
 ingly limitless prairies and through swift rivers I 
 have journeyed, destitute for months at a time of 
 all the ordinary comforts of life, that I might 
 preach Christ and His kingdom of righteousness, 
 peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. The only 
 weapon I carried on these solitary journeys was a 
 sword, viz., the sword of the Spirit of Truth, and 
 with this weapon I have put to flight now and 
 again whole mobs of profane swearers and scoffers 
 at the faith of the gospel of Christ. However 
 these brief labors and sufferings are not worthy of 
 mention ; they either were a joy in themselves, or 
 they spurred the old war horse on to new activity. 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 211 
 
 Passing from my own labors to speak of church 
 life in an organized form, as in synods, I must 
 admit that here there was a great lack. Not only 
 were the men and means lacking with which to 
 occupy the fields standing ripe to the harvest, but 
 there was a worse lack in the almost utter absence 
 of oneness of spirit and purpose. At times, when 
 united effort was needed for the carrying through 
 of the work of the Church and hardly a trace of 
 this unanimity could be found, I used to think 
 almost with longing of the spirit that made the 
 armies of Napoleon all but irresistible. This was 
 a spirit of vain glory or of evil ; yet it was an 
 esprit de corps^ and it drove the armies on to vic- 
 tory. In those little synodical bands there seemed 
 at times to be almost more opinions than men, and 
 the only spirit that all had in common was the 
 spirit of individualism, leading each one to consider 
 himself the centre of the universe, about which all 
 should revolve. 
 
 Though I say it myself, I labored for those 
 things that tended toward unity, seeing to it that 
 the Minutes of Synod were printed, though at my 
 own expense occasionally, and raising or giving 
 personally the salary of a synodical missionary, 
 whose field of labor was Cincinnati. Notwith- 
 standing these efforts of mine, I could not admon- 
 ish the brethren on the great subject of unity 
 
212 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 without bringing down upon my head all manner 
 of personal attack and insinuation. These person- 
 alities and insinuations to which some of the 
 brethren had recourse had the sharper point from 
 the fact that those making the thrust had noted 
 with some care my peculiarities or infirmities, if 
 you please, and were also aware that there was one 
 in this country bearing my name who was not an 
 honest man. To tell a full and truthful story, I 
 must confess here an act of weakness into which I 
 fell under such provocation. At one of our meet- 
 ings I was urging the laggards to activity on 
 behalf of some worthy cause, when I got as my 
 answer some insinuation as to my honesty in pur- 
 pose and act. Then I sinned before God and man, 
 for blind wrath, fiercer than the rage of battle, 
 took complete possession of me, and I started for 
 that man with but one thought — to destroy him 
 with one blow. But the Lord is merciful, and He 
 gave one of the brethren the wisdom to say at that 
 instant: "Hold! this is not Napoleon's army!" 
 More was not needed, for my self-possession 
 returned as quickly as it had left me, and I apolo- 
 gized to the Chairman for my outbreak of wrath, 
 and also to the man upon whom I had turned and 
 to all the brethren. I sinned grievously here ; but 
 the insect who stung me was surely not to be 
 commended. 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 213 
 
 What is needed in our Protestant hosts to-day to 
 bring them to the efficiency to which they are 
 called and destined ? To answer in a word, I 
 should say Consecration to their most holy cause, 
 in place of the Individualism now so prevalent. 
 This devotion to a cause made Ancient Rome mis- 
 tress of the world, and it is the strength of Modern 
 Rome to-day. Many, as I know from good author- 
 ity, are the diflferences and divisions within the 
 Church of Rome ; but they are all suppressed, or, 
 at least, kept strictly subordinate to the one all- 
 important interest. 
 
 When Evangelical Protestantism acquires this 
 discipline of the patriot and the soldier, it will 
 be able to do its great and destined work. Order 
 is heaven's first law, and order and subordination 
 there must be in the work of the kingdom of God 
 among men, as there was in the work of Creation, 
 and, as Revelation tells us, there is in heaven and 
 in the presence of God. 
 
 Once and again there has risen before my spirit 
 the vision of the Church in the Western world, as 
 she is to be when purified after her experience with 
 Sectarianism and Rationalism and consecrated to 
 her most holy cause. 
 
 Christ, the Great Head, has promised to be with 
 His Church even to the end of the ages, and in the 
 blessing of that promise His Church has been 
 
214 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS, 
 
 moving steadily onward, conquering and to con- 
 quer. In this favored Western world, whose civil- 
 zation is the fruitage of all the ages, she surely has 
 her greatest triumphs to achieve. Shall there be 
 progress in knowledge and invention passing the 
 wildest dreams of those of former days, and the 
 Gospel of Christ, that alone by the side of all 
 human culture is the power of God unto salvation, 
 be allowed to lie unused and forgotten ? It is no 
 such gloomy prospect as this that rises before my 
 faith. I believe, and rejoice in my belief, that, 
 when the quick-witted people of this Western land 
 have tasted one and another of the waters of this 
 life that cannot satisfy the soul's thirst, they will 
 come in their myriads to drink of that water, 
 which, if a man drink, he shall never thirst. Hav- 
 ing been led hither and thither by many blind 
 leaders of the blind, the masses of this people will, 
 I believe, turn in God's good time to Him who is 
 the Way, the Truth and the Life. 
 
 Free from the trammels of the State, supported 
 by the eager and generous spirit of the youngest 
 and mightiest of nations, and upheld by the direct- 
 ing hand of the Almighty who held this Western 
 hemisphere so long in reserve for His appointed 
 ones, the Church of Christ has here her grandest 
 future. When the Lord's portion of the super- 
 abundant American resources and of the tireless 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 215 
 
 American energy shall have been given to His 
 service, then surely there will speedily follow the 
 conquest of the world for Christ. 
 
VALEDICTORY. 
 
 piVE years more than the allotted four score 
 have been mine to enjoy, for the most part 
 in the fullness of health and vigor, and at all 
 times as one led and sustained by the hand of the 
 Lord. Last and best of all, a ministry of the 
 glorious gospel of Peace has been granted me, 
 that, year for year, has equaled the period I 
 gave to the cruel pursuits of War. Men have 
 fallen under my hand in battle, it is true ; but 
 by the grace and blessing of God, much greater 
 is the number of those whom it has been my 
 privilege to snatch from Death through the min- 
 istry of healing. By the favor of the Lord, still 
 greater, I believe, is the number of those whom 
 I have been used to lead out of the bondage of 
 the second death into the unending life and bless- 
 edness of the sons of God. 
 
 As I can see now, my life has been divided 
 into its distinct periods, something as was the 
 life of Moses, the man of God. In my life a 
 score of years was given to preparation ; then a 
 score to the service of this world, chiefly in the 
 pursuits of War ; a score to the readjustment of 
 life to the conditions of the New World and of 
 
 216 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 217 
 
 Peace; lastly, a score to the service of the Great 
 Captain. 
 
 And now the bodily mechanism, so fearful and 
 wonderful, is running down. The stream of my 
 life is nearing the mighty ocean of Eternity, and 
 already my spirit hears the pulsation of the bil- 
 lows of the shoreless main. Now comes the 
 premonition of the end. I feel that the time is 
 near when I must die ; not, as I so often 
 thought, in the brutish rage of desperate battle, 
 but most quietly, surrounded by my loved ones, 
 and filled with the peace that the world can 
 neither give nor take away. 
 
 What then? Dissolution? Annihilation? Ab- 
 sorption into the Infinite? No; a thousand times 
 No, as far as the soul, my true Self, is concerned. 
 This cannot be the end, for only now at long 
 last clearness of understanding has come ; this 
 must be the moment of pause before the begin- 
 ning of real life. 
 
 This body, this poor, battered house of clay, 
 shall return to the dust from which it was 
 fashioned ; yet I shall not be unclothed, but 
 clothed upon, even with the strength and beauty 
 of immortality. Life is from above, from the 
 Father of Light and of Life and, once given, it 
 cannot be destroyed by mortal weakness or decay ; 
 but is forever, though Time pass into Eternity. 
 
218 UNDER TWO CAPTAINS. 
 
 Is this soul, this true and nobler Self that is 
 just coming to realize its worth and responsi- 
 bility, to be swallowed up like a drop of water 
 by the ocean, and lost forever for any life of its 
 own, as even some Christian poets have dreamed? 
 
 No; my personal life is not now to end. Life 
 is just about to begin, for my heart tells me I 
 am just about to enter the city and the palace 
 of the Great King, after a life of wandering 
 and hardship. This time-beaten and war-worn 
 body must soon be laid away in some quiet 
 God's acre ; but I myself shall live, as, hound to 
 earth, I never have lived. I realize that I am 
 about to know many things of the first import- 
 ance, after which my spirit has long sought. I 
 am elated with the thought of being about to 
 meet the hosts of the pure and truly great spirits 
 who have gone before. Most and best of all, I 
 know and rejoice in my inmost heart that I am 
 soon to see the Lord, to stand before my Great 
 Captain and my Saviour, May my summons to 
 stand before the King of Kings soon come ! 
 
 [finis.] 
 
ADDENDUM. 
 
 'X'HERE is another life whose course ran side by- 
 side, as it were, for twenty years with that of 
 the truly manly spirit whose career we have been con- 
 sidering. This life also was most closely associated 
 with that of the great Corsican, and it too bears the 
 marks of real nobility, unaffected by the acid test of 
 the most searching publicity. 
 
 This other one of Nature's noblemen and companion 
 in arms of the hero of our story was no one less than 
 Marshal Ney, "the Bravest of the Brave" on Europe's 
 battlefields during the years of the Napoleonic wars. 
 
 Michel Ney was born at Saar-Louis, Province of 
 Lorraine, about 26 miles from Metz, in 1769, which 
 was also the birth year of Napoleon and of Wellington. 
 His father, Peter Ney, had been a soldier in the Seven 
 Years' War, had distinguished himself at the battle of 
 Rossbach and was very proud of his career in the Army. 
 Michel at an early age showed great fondness for the 
 military life. Childhood passed with its studies, then 
 a year or so in the study of Law, then practical life as 
 overseer of mines and iron works, and at eighteen the 
 young man followed his bent and enlisted in a regiment 
 of Hussars at Metz. By earnest application he soon 
 mastered the knowledge essential to the soldier's 
 calling, while he gained his comrades' admiration by 
 his skill with the sword and by the ease and boldness 
 with which he broke and rode the most dangerous 
 
 219 
 
220 ADDENDUM. 
 
 horses. His rise in service was rapid, promotion coming 
 to him five times in the year 1792, and in 1793 he was 
 appointed Aide-de-camp to General Lamarche, one 
 of the ablest officers of the Revolutionary period. 
 This general was killed and Ney was given other ser- 
 vice in which he distinguished himself so greatly that 
 General Kleber put him at the head of a select body of 
 500 men, known as Partizans, whose duty was the 
 perilous one of reconnoitering the enemy's positions 
 and cutting off any separate detachments they might 
 meet. His success here was marked and he was soon 
 made a Brigadier General, a rank of which he did not 
 deem himself worthy and which he strongly wished to 
 decline. The estimate put upon him by those in com- 
 mand was justified by four brilliant victories that 
 Ney gained in close succession, viz.: the capture of 
 Wurzburg, Forchheim, Nuremberg and Sulzbach. 
 
 It was Ney's practice during the whole of his most 
 eventful career to take the lead personally in every 
 important action. While this practice endeared him 
 to his soldiers and added greatly to his success in battle, 
 it put him in many a place of peril and cost him many 
 a wound. 
 
 Near Dierdorf Ney with 500 Hussars attacked the 
 Austrians, 6000 strong, and held them for four hours 
 until the French infantry and cavalry reserve could 
 come up. Soon after with a small force he attacked 
 the enemy near Giessen, but was greatly outnumbered 
 and his troops fled. Ney's horse fell with him, rolling 
 into a ravine. He was surrounded and fought six 
 dragoons single handed and was not taken even then, 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 221 
 
 though his sword broke in half, till his foot slipped and 
 he fell. His capture was deeply felt by the French 
 army and even by the Directory, and before long his 
 exchange was brought about. 
 
 By this time Napoleon had become deeply interested 
 in the brilliant young general and had Josephine in- 
 troduce him to an intimate friend of her daughter 
 Hortense, Mile. Aglae Auguie, a truly beautiful and 
 noble young lady. It was a case of love at first sight 
 between two noble spirits and they were married and 
 lived most happily till the fortunes of war brought a 
 great grief into their lives, but of this we shall speak 
 later. 
 
 In this connection a word may be said regarding 
 Ney's financial situation. Although he was made a 
 Marshal of France and a Duke and had a station to 
 maintain, and though he had many opportunities for 
 enriching himself through the plunders of war, his 
 high sense of honor kept him in comparative poverty 
 through his whole career and made him restrain his 
 soldiers from the plundering so common in war. 
 
 About this time Ney was made Minister Plenipo- 
 tentiary to Switzerland, and showed himself to be a 
 statesman of ability, as well as the general. French 
 aggressions, running through some years, had aroused 
 a bitter feeling among the Swiss, yet Ney, coming 
 with an army of 30,000 and making demands in the 
 name of France, treated them so justly that he gained 
 their strong friendship, which they expressed in an 
 official letter from the confederated cantons, accom- 
 panied with a rich gift. A sentence or two of this 
 
222 ADDENDUM. 
 
 letter will show the spirit that the Swiss recognized 
 in a truly great man placed in a trying situation. 
 
 "Switzerland is restored to peace; order is every- 
 where established; the diversity of opinions among us 
 merges each day into a spirit of moderation and har- 
 mony. An act of kindness attaches him who performs 
 it as well as him upon whom it is conferred; we there- 
 fore do not fear that you will forget us." 
 
 There have been those who considered Ney a born 
 soldier, but as otherwise lacking in ability. His 
 masterly civil administration in Switzerland is an 
 answer to this opinion, as is also his work on the art of 
 war, which he called by the modest name of Military 
 Studies, but of which a British military writer of stand- 
 ing says, "In the Military Studies of Marshal Ney we 
 see the hand of a master." 
 
 During the course of the World War we heard no 
 little discussion of the possibility of a German invasion 
 of England from the Channel ports of France, and the 
 general belief was that it was an impossible thing. 
 It may be of interest to recall that Napoleon had a 
 great army under Soult and Ney at Boulogne, well 
 supplied with gunboats and other light craft and so 
 drilled that 25,000 men were actually embarked in 
 10 minutes. Ney's careful studies of the winds, calms, 
 fogs and other natural conditions showed that it was 
 quite possible under any one of several conditions to 
 elude the British fleet and to put a strong army on 
 British soil with but slight resistance. This project 
 was never put to the trial because of the recognized 
 incompetency of the French naval officers and because 
 of the recognized efficiency of the British, 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 223 
 
 Time does not permit more than the passing mention 
 of Ney's truly great victories at Elchingen, Jena, 
 Soldau and not a few others that History records; we 
 must pass on to the crowning achievements of his 
 mihtary career — his conduct of the retreat from Russia 
 and his part in the battle of Waterloo. 
 
 That the great retreat did not again and again be- 
 come a hopeless rout and massacre of the whole army 
 was due to the indomitable bravery and wonderful re- 
 sourcefulness of one man — who fought and contrived 
 seeming impossibilities and fought again against 
 crushing odds for forty days and nights of incessant 
 horror. Napoleon himself had fled as soon as he 
 realized the hopelessness of the situation, and all his 
 leaders but Ney had followed his selfish example. 
 Ney only held his post of deadly peril with but a few 
 thousands, and these falling day by day from cold, 
 famine, disease and at the hands of the enemy. 
 
 Let us glance at but two instances of many. Near 
 Krasnoi Ney found his way blocked by the Russians 
 with 80,000 men and 200 cannon, while he had but 
 4000 men and 6 cannon. The Russians used treachery 
 besides, shooting down many of the French while off 
 their guard during a parley, yet Ney broke their first 
 line by a frontal attack and then made a masterly re- 
 treat during the night, crossing the Dneiper at the one 
 place where the ice was thick enough to bear men on 
 foot. At the crossing of the Beresina, where the bag- 
 gage of the whole army and 36,000 men were lost, 
 Ney again took the post of danger, formed a rear guard 
 and even fought in the ranks as a private till his force 
 
224 ADDENDUM. 
 
 was reduced to sixty men, that he might hold the 
 enemy in check and make possible the escape of a few 
 more of the defeated and spiritless Grand Army. 
 
 The story of Waterloo need not be told again here. 
 Let it suffice to say that for Ney it was a glorious ending 
 of a glorious military career. After desperate fighting, 
 he took La Haye Sainte, a strong fortified position only 
 300 yards from the centre of Wellingston's line of 
 battle. Had not Napoleon selfishly taken away Ney's 
 reserve, Ney could, in all probability, have swept away 
 the British centre. "Within thy bosom are thy fateful 
 stars," says the poet, and Napoleon's famous star of 
 destiny certainly went down, to rise no more, when his 
 selfish impulse deprived the man who was his right 
 hand of the weapon with which to strike an effective 
 blow. The story of the magnificent charge of the Old 
 Guard, led by Ney as the sun was setting, was the grand 
 climax of the great battle, but it was too late, for the 
 massed artillery of the British and their reserve ranks 
 of infantry mowed the Guard as grass before the scythe. 
 
 The vengeful Bourbon autocracy soon gathered in 
 those who were counted as leaders in bringing Napoleon 
 back from Elba and Ney was marked for the slaughter. 
 The Duke of Wellington, who admired Ney for his noble 
 qualities and who had been deeply touched by the 
 appeals of Ney's friends, went to Louis XVIIL, the 
 poor stick of monarchy whom he twice put on the 
 throne, to ask that Ney's life might be spared, but he 
 was insulted publicly by Louis turning his back upon 
 him as he drew near. Wellington felt the insult 
 keenly and said to the courtiers standing by, "You 
 forget that I comm-anded the armies which put your 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 225 
 
 king on his throne. I will never again enter the royal 
 presence." 
 
 What the histories tell of Ney's execution you can 
 read. However there is another account, given by an 
 English Member of Parliment, who, strangely enough, 
 happened to be at the secluded spot where the execu- 
 tion took place, and given years later in America by 
 Peter Stuart Ney to a few trusted friends. 
 
 The account that we believe can be shown to set 
 forth the truth gives us the following points: At an 
 early hour the carriage containing Ney, several officers 
 and a priest made its way through the Luxembourg 
 Gardens and stopped at a back entrance, where there 
 was only an alley, yet a picket of soldiers near by who 
 had been on duty there for over four hours. Here 
 Ney left the carriage and walked toward a wall, the 
 soldiers meanwhile loading their own guns. Ney then 
 turned, took a few steps towards the soldiers, protested 
 before God and man that he had never betrayed his 
 country, told the soldiers not to fire till he put his 
 hand to his heart; bidding them in a low tone to aim 
 high, he then struck himself over the heart, gave the 
 command to fire and fell motionless at the volley. 
 Some colored fluid ran out from under his vest and an 
 Englishman suddenly stepped up and picked up a few 
 small stones that had been stained by the fluid, wrapped 
 them up and quickly walked away. Within three 
 minutes the body was taken up and conveyed in the 
 same carriage in which the party had come to a 
 Maternity Hospital that stood shut in by high walls, 
 a few hundred yards from the scene of the execution. 
 
 15 ^ 
 
226 ADDENDUM. 
 
 Here it lay, under guard, the rest of that day and 
 (History says) until daybreak, when it was taken 
 secretly to the cemetery of Pere la Chaise and buried 
 without any ceremony whatever. As Mr. P. S. Ney 
 of North Carolina told a few trusted friends, the sup- 
 posed corpse was acting very differently by riding for 
 his life all through that night toward Bordeaux, where, 
 after a brief concealment, he took ship for America. 
 It may be added that while the body lay in the Hospital 
 (History says with nine bullets in the body itself and 
 three in the head through the face) the officer on guard 
 made a sketch of it that was so good that an engraving 
 was later made from it for private circulation. It is 
 said of this that a smile of the most winning placidity 
 seemed to play on the face of the defunct. 
 
 After a tedious winter voyage on the sailing vessel 
 Ney landed at Charleston, S. C, on January 29, 1816, 
 and here or in this vicinity he spent three years in 
 strict seclusion, occupying himself with systematic 
 study. Although he was supplied with funds beyond 
 his needs, a man of his temperament could not think 
 of passing the rest of his days in idleness, and a man 
 who had commanded great armies could not be content 
 in a subordinate position, while any situation that 
 carried with it publicity might be disastrous to him- 
 self or to friends in France. Accordingly the Bravest 
 of the Brave decided upon the absolute sway of the 
 country schoolmaster of those times as his calling, and, 
 on the whole, or as far as happiness was possible for 
 an exile from a beloved family and country, he was 
 happy in this calling, v 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 227 
 
 Peter Stuart Ney, as he called himself, was j&rst 
 known in the United States in 1819, when he was rec- 
 ognized in Georgetown, S. C, as Marshal Ney, where- 
 upon he disappeared. In the fall of this year Col. 
 Benj. Rogers of Brownsville, S. C, met Ney at a hotel 
 at Cheraw, S. C, and engaged him to teach the village 
 school. He taught in Brownsville for three years and 
 then went to Mocksville, N. C, where he taught, as 
 also in Iredell County and elsewhere in western North 
 Carolina. In 1828 he taught in Mecklenburg County, 
 Va., for two years. Returning to North Carolina, he 
 taught in Lincoln, Iredell, Davie, Cabarrus and 
 Rowan counties till August, 1844. He then went to 
 Darlington, S. C; then back to North CaroHna, teach- 
 ing in Lincoln and Rowan counties till his death in 
 1846. 
 
 During the years from 18 19 to 1846, spent by Ney 
 largely in teaching, he lived in homes of leading fami- 
 lies in a number of neighborhoods, associated with them 
 intimately day by day and taught their children in 
 school. Practically without an exception these many 
 representative people from different communities unite 
 in the judgment that Peter Stuart Ney was a high- 
 minded gentleman, an accomplished scholar, and also 
 that he was none other than Marshal Ney. 
 
 Let us cite but one such witness, Dr. J. R. B. Adams 
 of Statesville, N. C, who says that he knew P. S. Ney 
 intimately and was entirely satisfied that he was 
 Marshal Ney. He speaks of Ney as a fine specimen 
 of manhood, being tall, very strongly built, with a 
 bearing that might be described as majestic, and with 
 
228 ADDENDUM. 
 
 eyes that were uncommonly brilliant and piercing 
 and that seemed to look clear through you. He was 
 a splendid judge of human nature and despised shams 
 of all kinds. 
 
 On several occasions Ney was recognized by old 
 soldiers of his former commands as the Marshal. 
 In 1840 John Snyder of Iredell County, N. C, saw 
 P. S. Ney in Statesville and was so surprised that he 
 threw up his hands and exclaimed: "Lordy God, 
 Marshal Ney." Ney gave him a sign not to talk 
 and later conversed with him. Ney had been deeply 
 interested in his soldiers, often going among them 
 privately and seeing that their wants were supplied. 
 Frederick Barr, another old soldier of Ney's, rec- 
 ognized him at a political meeting in Rowe's township, 
 nine miles from Statesville. Barr was greatly excited 
 and made an exclamation in German. Daniel Hoke, 
 a prominent citizen, understood German, and told sev- 
 eral others what Barr had said. "Yonder is Marshal 
 Ney. They told me he was shot, but he was not. 
 Yonder he is. I know him, for I fought under him 
 off and on for five or six years in Napoleon's Wars." 
 Barr was known as a reliable and industrious man, a 
 tenant of Mr. Hoke's. Soon after Barr suddenly left 
 the country for Indiana, and it was said that Mr. Hoke 
 supplied him with money for the journey. 
 
 About 1842 Dr. Adams, named above, met in Ala- 
 bama Col. Lehmanowsky, who was making a tour of the 
 Southern states lecturing on Napoleon's campaigns. 
 Col. Lehmanowsky told Dr. Adams that he was fully 
 convinced from what he had seen and heard in France 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 229 
 
 and in this country that Marshal Ney was not executed. 
 He said that he was well acquainted with Ney and could 
 recognize him at a glance. 
 
 A relative of Lehmanowsky's second wife has stated 
 to the author of this book that Lehmanowsky stopped 
 at their home in the Shenandoah Valley, Va., en route 
 to Carolina for a visit to Ney. 
 
 It would be a pleasant task, and yet not an easy 
 one, to picture this meeting of the two Great Hearts, 
 This meeting is something to strengthen our faith in 
 the possibilities of our human nature and in Provi- 
 dence. Outwardly it was only a very retired meeting 
 in a foreign land of two old comrades in arms, but let 
 us look deeper. 
 
 What a blessing it is that for generations this land of 
 freedom has stood beyond the Western ocean as a 
 haven of refuge for the persecuted of the Old World, 
 and, on the other hand, what a benefit some of the 
 nobler spirits, driven from Europe by autocracy in 
 Church or State, have been to their new home. What 
 men these two refugees were physically, intellectually, 
 and even spiritually when following their own initiative. 
 Through what ordeals of fire had not these knightly 
 men passed and been brought out practically unscathed 
 in body and how very rich in spirit! We can imagine 
 the deep joy of their friendship as they lived over 
 together this or the other incident of their most event- 
 ful lives in the Old World, as when each of them had 
 been rescued from the very hand of the King of 
 Terrors, as he had come with such terrible deliberation 
 to cut them down. Napoleon, both the man and his 
 
230 ADDENDUM. 
 
 fortunes, must have been their theme for some most 
 earnest discussion. Loyalty to their chief had become 
 second nature to these brave soldiers, yet, as men of 
 high principle, they must have seen, especially as 
 remoteness in distance and the lapse of time had 
 broken the strong personal magnetism of their leader, 
 that the image, almost worshipped in the time of his 
 power, did not have even a head of gold, but only of 
 plate, and that this was none too thick in places. 
 Family and friends then, either across the wide ocean 
 or in the new home land, must have occupied their 
 thoughts and speech. Their life callings as men of 
 peace in the closely related fields of education and of 
 the gospel ministry and the dignity and the rewards 
 of these callings — what matter for earnest discussion 
 was there not here. 
 
 On various parts of his person Peter Stuart Ney 
 carried scars that correspond to wounds that Marshal 
 Ney is known to have received, and of the resemblance 
 in penmanship between writings of Marshal Ney and 
 some of P. S. Ney we have the following testimony. 
 David Carvalho, of New York City, an expert in pen- 
 manship, says: "I have made a careful analysis of the 
 alleged hand-writings of Marshal Ney and Peter S. 
 Ney contained in the eight pages of original writings 
 which you submitted to me. As the result of said 
 examination I am of the opinion that the writer of 
 the specimens on the four pages purporting to be those 
 of Marshal Ney and the writer of the four pages pur- 
 porting to be those of Peter S. Ney are one and the 
 same person." 
 
A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 231 
 
 At times P. S. Ney would receive letters from France 
 and periods of deep despondency would always follow. 
 On two occasions, once in Statesville, N. C, and once 
 in Virginia, Ney received visits from fine-looking 
 young Frenchmen, of whom he admitted, after their 
 departure, that they were his sons. It may be asked 
 here. Why did not Ney eventually return to France, 
 to his family and friends? Strong efforts were made by 
 men of prominence in France to obtain a reversal of 
 the sentence of death against Marshal Ney, but with- 
 out success. When these efforts failed, after five years 
 of trial, P. S. Ney became greatly depressed. At this 
 time he wrote in the album of a lady who had been one 
 of his pupils a significant little poem. 
 
 Gone, With Their Glories Gone. 
 
 "Though I of the chosen the choicest, 
 To Fame gave her loftiest tone; 
 Though I 'mong the brave was the bravest, 
 My plume and my baton are gone. 
 
 "The Eagle that pointed to conquest 
 Was struck from his altitude high, 
 A prey to the vulture the foulest, 
 No more to revisit the sky. 
 
 "One sigh to the hope that has perished, 
 One tear to the wreck of the past, 
 One look upon all I have cherished, 
 One lingering look — 'tis the last. 
 
232 ADDENDUM. 
 
 "And now from remembrance I banish 
 The glories which shone in my train; 
 Oh, vanish, fond memories, vanish. 
 Return not to sting me again." 
 
 Peter Stuart Ney died on the 15 th of November, 
 1846. Dr. M. Locke, one of his old pupils, was in 
 attendance upon him and told him plainly that his 
 end was near. A few hours before he died Dr. Locke 
 said to him: "Mr. Ney, you have but a short time to 
 live and we would like to know from your own lips 
 who you are before you die." Ney, perfectly rational, 
 raised himself on his elbow, and, looking Dr. Locke 
 full in the face, said: "I am Marshal Ney of France." 
 Two or three hours later he died. 
 
 A fair amount of material from first-hand sources 
 has been used in the preparation of this book, and 
 standard histories, such as Professor Sloane's great 
 work on Napoleon Bonaparte, have been consulted, 
 yet in the Addendum first mention must be given to 
 Major Weston's scholarly work, "Historic Doubts 
 as to the Execution of Marshal Ney." 
 
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