248 BLANCHE DE BEAULIEU. 
the army without. He who issued these commands was a young 
man, who did not appear to have numbered more than two and 
twenty years. His long brown hair parted on his forehead, fell in 
waving curls over his temples and cheeks, which were pale and 
thin ; and his whole countenance was stamped with that indescribable 
air of melancholy which, in the eye of superstition, is considered to 
mark those who are fated to die young. He was bending over a table, 
and beneath the large blue cloak which was wrapped loosely round 
him, might be discerned the marks of his rank-—the insignia of a 
general. A geographical chart lay before him ; and by the light of 
a lamp, which seemed to grow pale in the more lurid blaze of the 
burning village, he was tracing with a pencil the route his men 
were to take. It was the young republican General Marceau. 
At length the work of destruction was over. The village so 
lately smiling in its peaceful valley was reduced to a heap of ashes. 
The groups of men which surrounded it once more forming into 
column, prepared to traverse the dark and circuitous route which se- 
parates St. Crepin from Montfaucon ; and when, some minutes after, 
the moon shone for an instant from behind the thick clouds, on their 
_ glittering bayonets, as they crept almost noiselessly along, they ap- 
peared, winding through the darkness like an immense serpent, co- 
vered with scales of burnished steel. 
Marching to an attack by night is a melancholy thing to an 
army. War may be glorious to the enthusiast by day, when, amid 
the roar of the cannon and the clanging sound of conflicting wea- 
pons, the martial trumpet excites ardour in the soul, and friends and 
enemies are by to see how gloriously we fall. But in the deep si- 
lence of night, not to know how we are attacked, nor how to defend 
ourselves ; to fall without seeing who strikes us, nor whence the 
blow came ; to be trampled under foot in the darkness, surrounded 
by the dying and the dead, with no friendly eve to pity and no arm 
to succour us; these, these are the horrors that often make the 
boldest heart quail, and the most daring arm tremble. Such 
thoughts passed rapidly through the minds of many in that army, 
as they pursued their route cautiously and in silence ; for they knew 
that a sharp conflict awaited them at the end of a toilsome and diffi- 
cult march—a battle by night. Marceau himself was their guide ; 
he had so attentively studied all the localities that he believed him- 
self able to conduct them in safety to the spot to which they were 
bound, and the event proved he was not mistaken. In little more 
than an hour they found themselves in the dark gloom of the forest, 
where, according to the intelligence he had received, Marceau 
