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"He would find himself more at home at the head of four squadrons in the Ardennes than commanding a dozen millions of such fellows as we have here, without excepting President Charton," said the Duke of Orleans.

This indiscreet remark was heard by Louis Bonaparte, and on the next morning Kellerman received orders to join the army in Hanover, where he was put under the command of a general younger than himself. Cloud, and so much protected by Duroc, who had made, in 1792, his first campaign under this officer, then commander-in-chief of the army of the Ardennes.

To have lived on the principal battle ground of the world war was a privilege the author did not appreciate at the time. As representative of the United States Government in the Consular district of France that includes the departments of the Aisne, Ardennes, Marne, Aube, Meuse, Vosges, Haute-Marne and Meurthe-et-Moselle, he lived and had his headquarters at Reims, some years before the war.

The Abbot told him faithfully all that had happened, informing him that a coward knight, who called himself the son of Thierry of Ardennes, had wounded Girard, and run upon Huon, who was unarmed; but by his force and valor he had overcome the traitor, and left him dead upon the plain.

The Badahuenna wood, horrid with Druidic sacrifices, extended along the eastern line of the vanished lake of Flevo. On the south, the famous groves of Ardennes, haunted by faun and satyr, embowered the country, and separated it from Celtic Gaul.

The same leaven was working in him that in other times begat Rubens and Jordaens and the Van Eycks, and all their wondrous tribe, and in times more recent begat in the green country of the Ardennes, where the Meuse washes the old walls of Dijon, the great artist of the Patroclus, whose genius is too near us for us aright to measure its divinity.

And in the background, behind Sedan, dotted with countless little points of brilliant light, the shadows had mustered, denser and darker, as if all the forests of the Ardennes had collected the inky blackness of their secular oaks and cast it there. Jean's gaze came back to the bridge of boats beneath them. "Look there! everything is against us. We shall never get across."

Born at Vouziers, in Ardennes, on April 21, 1838, he passed with great distinction through the Collège de Bourbon and the École Normale. Until he was twenty-five he filled minor positions at Toulon, Nevers, and Poitiers; and then, hopeless of further promotion, he abandoned educational work, returned to Paris, and devoted himself to letters.

His known love of liberty and equality induced the Committee of Public Safety, in 1793, to appoint him to the chief command of the armies of Ardennes and of the North, instead of Lamarche and Houchard. On the 17th of October the same year, he gained the victory of Wattignies, which obliged the united forces of Austria, Prussia, and Germany to raise the siege of Maubeuge.

This indiscreet remark was heard by Louis Bonaparte, and on the next morning Kellerman received orders to join the army in Hanover, where he was put under the command of a general younger than himself. Cloud, and so much protected by Duroc, who had made, in 1792, his first campaign under this officer, then commander-in-chief of the army of the Ardennes.