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The day after the battle of Prusse-Eylau, his valet thus describes his visit to the field of blood: "Il faisoit un froid glacial, des mourants respiroient encore; la foule des cadavres et les cavitès noiratres qui le sang des hommes avoit laisse dans la neigè faisoit un affreux contraste. L'etat Major etoit peniblement affectè.
"Purgeons le sol des patriotes, Par des rois encore infectes. La terre de la liberte Rejette les os des despotes. De ces monstres divinises Que tous lea cercueils soient brises! Que leur memoirs soit fletrie! Et qu'avec leurs manes errants Sortent du sein de la patrie Les cadavres de ses tyrants!" The land of liberty Rejects the bones of despots.
Their savage foes, balked of a living prey, wreaked their fury on the dead. They dug up the graves; they threw down the scaffolds. Ils en brulerent la plus grande partie, ils en mangerent meme quelques uns, et jetterent le reste aux chiens. Ils planterent les tetes de ces cadavres a demi decharnes sur des pieux," etc.
"Très bon! merci, messieurs les cadavres, perhaps I may forgive you even yet for being empty." Hope surged, he wrought eagerly; before long he had cleared away a passage that ended in a dead wall! It was perhaps the most poignant moment of his experience. He had, then, been the fool of an illusion! Only a blank wall!
Then the siege, which he claims to have directed, the battery of Mouton Tout, adding, 'Nous avons enterre, en entrant a Paris, vingt mille cadavres. Dined at Mme. Mohl's on the 5th with M. de Lomenie and M. Chevreuil, who is about eighty-five. The Duc d'Aumale had opened his house in the Faubourg St.-Honore; reception there. January 8th. Dined with the Economists to meet the Emperor of Brazil.
But his joke was but shortlived; for just then, from behind the wall of an old ruined temple whiz! there came a shattering volley of musketry in the midst of us; the only miracle is how one escaped. The next moment there was a wild hurrah, and we beheld some fifty Mameluke fellows, all glittering with gold, coming down full speed on us, on their Arab chargers. Mille cadavres! what was to be done?
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